Two Illinois residents who were detained outside a Chicago-area immigration detention center last year have sued right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson for defamation, accusing him of falsely telling millions of viewers that they were violent extremists who attacked federal agents.
Kyle Frankovich, a data scientist at Harvard University, and Maureen Foody, a contract court reporter, filed the suit Friday in federal court in the Northern District of Illinois, reported MS NOW.
The pair say they were protesting peacefully outside the Broadview ICE facility when they were detained, and that Johnson knowingly portrayed them as criminals.
The case appears to be the first defamation suit tied to the Trump administration's immigration crackdown to target one of the pro-Donald Trump influencers who have been given special access to cover federal operations.
Karianne Jones, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told MS NOW the lawsuit aims to hold accountable people who "serve as a mouthpiece for the government." The complaint calls Johnson's content "political combat dressed up as news."
Johnson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Oct. 3, 2025, Johnson joined then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and former Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino at Broadview. The site had become a flashpoint, with viral videos showing agents shoving demonstrators and firing tear gas and pepper balls.
According to the complaint, Frankovich and Foody were standing in a designated "free speech" zone when agents, without provocation, shoved, struck and detained several protesters.
In videos Johnson posted across several platforms, he appears to taunt the crowd. "These are exactly the kind of people that we want to be pissing off," Johnson says in one clip. "It's your tears that keep us going."
Another scene shows about 10 detained protesters, including the plaintiffs, lined up with their hands zip-tied. Johnson calls them "left-wing terrorists arrested for attacking police officers and ICE officers."
"All of this was false, which Mr. Johnson knew," the complaint states.
One of Johnson's posts, which claimed that "every activist here attacked ICE agents," drew 1.7 million views. Hundreds of commenters called for the protesters to be prosecuted or deported, and some called for them to be tortured or killed, according to the suit.
Neither plaintiff was charged with a crime, and the complaint states they were held for about eight hours and then released a half-mile from the facility.
Frankovich told MS NOW he was shaken by the online reaction, and he said Johnson's followers labeled him an antifa leader and were "trying to find me and stop me."
Johnson, who was fired from BuzzFeed for plagiarism in 2014, has become one of the administration's go-to "new media" figures and has been given a seat in the White House briefing room and ride-alongs with immigration agents.
He was among several prominent right-wing commentators whose content creation for the Tennessee-based startup Tenet Media was secretly funded by Russian state media employees, according to a 2024 federal indictment, although Johnson was not charged with any crimes and claims he was not aware of the foreign funding.