Trump DOJ poised to dramatically expand Texas 'antifa' prosecution
The U.S. government plans to dramatically expand its Texas “antifa” prosecution by adding new defendants to its “militant enterprise” case against two individuals charged with terrorism conspiracy related to a summer attack on an immigration enforcement facility.
Federal prosecutors said in a court filing earlier this month they plan to seek a superseding indictment that would add new defendants to the case against Zachary Evetts and Autumn Hill, who are among 15 individuals charged in connection to the July 4 attack on the Prairieland ICE facility in Alvarado, Texas, in which a local police officer sustained a gunshot wound.
The 15 defendants made their first appearances in federal court in Fort Worth on Sept. 23 — one day after President Donald Trump declared “antifa” (short for “anti-fascist”) groups to be “a militarist, anarchist enterprise” and less than two weeks after the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk prompted a frenzied mobilization by the administration and its allies to crack down on the political left.
Antifa is a decentralized movement with roots in militant opposition to fascism in Europe during the run-up to World War II. Contemporary antifascists typically operate individually or in small, local affinity groups to infiltrate, disrupt and expose violent Nazis, while providing support to marginalized groups targeted by them. Drawing on anarchist and Marxist beliefs that the state is an unreliable partner in protecting people from fascist violence, antifascists are often willing to act outside the bounds of the law.
Among the 15 defendants in Texas, Evetts and Hill were the only two who refused to go along with the government’s motion to continue, forcing prosecutors to take their evidence before a grand jury to obtain a separate indictment. That indictment alleges that those involved in the Prairieland attack were members of “a North Texas Antifa Cell.”
Evetts’ lawyer, Patrick McLain, has said his client went to the ICE facility on July 4 with the intention of protesting and shooting fireworks, and has emphatically denied that Evetts fired a gun at authorities or was even carrying a firearm.
The only defendant the government has identified as an alleged shooter is Benjamin Song, a former Marine Corps reservist with a history of providing firearms training to pro-LGBTQ+ and antifascist activists in north Texas.
Described by the government as “a leader” of “the antifa cell,” Song is among the 13 defendants who went along with the government’s request to continue the cases.
The government has offered plea deals to Song and the other 12 defendants, and prosecutors said in the motion filed on Nov. 3 that they expect “a fair number of the offers will be accepted.”
Any who refuse the plea offers can be expected to be added to the “antifa enterprise” indictment against Evetts and Hill, the motion said.
A federal judge has agreed to the government’s motion to designate the prosecution as a complex case, allowing the government additional time to prepare and pushing back Evetts and Hill’s trial date, originally set for Nov. 24. A new date will be set after the government obtains a superseding indictment, according to the order.
McLain appealed the decision in a federal court filing on Monday, arguing that the government’s request for a complex case designation is motivated by a desire to try all the defendants together rather than give Evetts and Hill a separate trial.
The lawyer argued that the maneuver amounts to “a government effort to make cooperating witnesses better available … by handling their plea agreements first and making their cooperation a condition of their agreement.”
The motion also noted that the case has been widely publicized as the first “antifa” prosecution.
One former Department of Justice counterterrorism lawyer has warned that the government’s choice to define “antifa” as an “enterprise” raises concerns about a potential “dragnet” that could implicate people who may align ideologically but are not involved in violent activity.
“The public has a strong interest in understanding where their constitutional rights end and their exposure to novel criminal prosecution begins,” McLain wrote in the motion.
“While it is pending, this prosecution cannot help but chill the public’s exercise of its constitutional rights.”
Judge Mark Pittman disagreed, turning down Evetts’ request in an order issued on Wednesday.
Pittman has likewise denied requests by McLain to prohibit the government from using the terms “antifa” and “socialist” during jury selection and opening statements, and making reference to any firearms seized.
McLain argued that the charges against his client “are heavily dependent on the actions of others, particularly Coconspirator-1,” whose described actions in the indictment align with the government’s allegations against Song.
The government should prove its case by presenting evidence of Evetts’ “overt acts… in furtherance of a conspiracy or aiding and abetting it,” McLain argued, “rather than through evidence amounting to the exercise of his constitutionally protected rights of assembly and speech under the First Amendment and gun ownership under the Second Amendment.”
The Prairieland defendants’ alleged membership in “antifa” is likely to play a central role in the government’s case.
Prosecutors notified the court earlier this month that in addition to expert witness testimony on gun-shot residue, DNA analysis and fingerprints, the government plans to call an expert witness on counterterrorism “to testify about antifa, its origins and beliefs, and how the attack on Prairieland bore hallmarks of an antifa attack.”
Kyle Shideler, the expert witness, is director and senior analyst for homeland security and counterterrorism at the right-leaning Center for Security Policy. Last month, he testified at a hearing on political violence held by the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution.
During the Senate hearing, Shideler endorsed the description of “antifa” in the indictment against Evetts and Hill as “a good working definition.”
‘Incriminating evidence’
In a related case, prosecutors have described a box seized by law enforcement that “contained numerous Antifa materials” as “incriminating evidence.”
An indictment unveiled last month alleges that the defendant, Daniel Rolando Sanchez Estrada, conspired with “Coconspirator-1,” understood to be Song, by moving the box from Sanchez's home in Garland to an apartment in Denton.
The government describes the “antifa materials” as “insurrection planning, anti-law enforcement, anti-government, and anti-immigration enforcement documents and propaganda.”
Sanchez is accused of moving the materials with the intent “to conceal the contents of the box and impair its availability for use in a federal grand jury and federal criminal proceeding.”
The materials include a collection of photocopied, staple-bound booklets. Among the titles, according to the complaint, are War in the Streets: Tactical Lessons from the Global Civil War and Another Critique of Insurrectionalism, February 2014/Barcelona.
The preface of War in the Streets, published in 2016, describes a “series of situated and intelligent reflections on black blocs, street clashes and related tactics of confrontation,” intended as a practical guide for refining tactics as they relate “to the larger insurrectional process.”
The collection offers a profusion of passages that prosecutors might reference to make the case that the Prairieland defendants were part of an “antifa enterprise.”
“The practice of conspiracy, of strategic thought, of breathing together,” one reads, “must be a commons of skills and new forms that we all draw from.”
An earlier version of this story inaccurately reported that the box of "Antifa materials" was moved from the home of Daniel Rolando Sanchez Estrada's girlfriend in Fort Worth. The story has been corrected to reflect that the box was moved from Sanchez's residence in Garland.
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