A former senior Department of Justice anti-terrorism lawyer who served in three presidential administrations said he was troubled by federal prosecutors calling “antifa” a “militant enterprise,” in a recent indictment against two individuals accused of attacking a Texas ICE facility.
The indictment unveiled on Thursday charges Zachary Evetts and Cameron Arnold with providing material support to terrorists and three counts each of attempted murder of federal officers and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence, in connection with a July 4 attack on the ICE Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas.
The government alleges the two were part of an “antifa cell,” while defining “antifa” — commonly understood as a decentralized movement of people opposed to fascism — as an “enterprise made up of networks and small groups ascribing to a revolutionary anarchism or autonomous Marxist ideology.”
The indictment goes on to say that since Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January, “antifa adherents have increasingly targeted agents and facilities related to DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in opposition to ICE’s deportation actions and the U.S. government’s policy on the removal of illegal aliens.”
“The choice of the term ‘enterprise’ is illuminating in that they suggest they are investigating antifa as an enterprise,” Thomas E. Brzozowski, who formerly served as counsel for domestic terrorism at the Department of Justice, told Raw Story.
“It gives them the authority to look at a lot of stuff — membership, recruiting, funding….”
“It gives the FBI the wherewithal to examine the funding of anybody that would in their view fall under this bucket, which is pretty broad, even if you are not involved in perpetrating violence in the furtherance of this ideology.”
Brzozowski, who served under Joe Biden and Barack Obama as well under Trump’s first administration, added: “When you’ve got this amorphous definition that encompasses such a wide array of ideologies, that is a broad spectrum of people that are otherwise unconnected. That’s a problem, in my view.”
The indictment echoed language in Trump’s Sept. 22 executive order naming “antifa” as a “domestic terrorist organization,” while describing it as “a militaristic, anarchist enterprise.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi cited Trump in an X post on the indictment Thursday, declaring, “Antifa is a left-wing terrorist organization. They will be prosecuted as such.”
FBI Director Kash Patel wrote: “Under President Trump’s new authorities we’ve made 20+ arrests. No one gets to harm law enforcement. Not on my watch.”
‘Protest and shoot fireworks’
The indictment only says one member of the so-called “antifa cell” — described only as “Coconspirator-1” — fired at law enforcement at the ICE’s Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas on July 4.
The indictment describes “Coconspirator-1” as opening fire on Alvarado police officers responding to a 911 call from ICE, striking one of the officers in the neck area.
The U.S. Department of Justice has identified the shooter as Benjamin Hanil Song.
Song is separately charged with three counts of attempted murder of federal agents, but is not named as a defendant in the indictment defining “antifa” as a “militant enterprise.”
That indictment alleges that “Coconspirator-1” (Song) trained members of the “antifa cell” in firearms and close-quarters combat, and that when police responded to the ICE facility on July 4, Song yelled, “Get to the rifles.”
Patrick McLain, Evetts’ lawyer, previously told Raw Story his client believed he would be participating in a protest, and did not fire a gun.
“They were going to the ICE detention facility,” McLain said. “Mr. Evetts was going to protest and shoot fireworks on the night of the 4th of July. Clearly, someone fired.”
The recent indictment states that the police officer, who was reportedly discharged from an area hospital following the attack, returned fire.
“I know my guy was not a shooter,” McLain said. “I know my guy was not carrying a firearm.”
‘Who's antifascists? Everybody’
The material support charge against Evetts and Arnold utilizes a statute known as § 2339A, which was expanded to cover federal crimes of terrorism under President George W. Bush.
The statute, which carries a prison sentence of up to 15 years, was used by the government to prosecute three members of the Front, a neo-Nazi accelerationist group that plotted an attack on the power grid in 2020.
Brzozowski said he didn’t question the application of the charge to Evetts and Arnold, based on their alleged conduct.
But he did question how the administration was attempting to connect individuals in an alleged “antifa” enterprise, beyond ideology.
“I don’t see anything in the indictment that they self-identified as antifa,” Brzozowski said.
“Who’s antifascists? Everybody. Unless you’re a member of Atomwaffen or you’re a neo-Nazi. The vast majority of us are antifascist, I would hope.”
The reference to “anarchist or Marxist ideology” as a “connective tissue” for the alleged “enterprise” raises the prospect that people could be criminalized for political beliefs, regardless of whether they perpetrate violence, Brzozowski said.
“If you envision a situation like 200 people showing up outside an ICE facility and two or three are dressed in black, and they start tussling with the police and engaging in violence, what about the other 197 people?” Brzozowski asked.
“Are they now in an FBI database? That’s the most pernicious thing about this. You never know if you’re going to be swept up in a dragnet.
“The vagueness is the kicker,” he added. “It’s backwards. Typically, the FBI’s targets are going to be driven by a whole apparatus. They build up an intelligence picture of the most potent threats. That’s going to dictate how they allocate their scarce resources.
“Here, it appears the sequencing is jacked up. The administration is directing them to pursue a chimera, instead of an actual target based on intelligence.”
