Top Stories Daily Listen Now
RawStory
RawStory

Judge in Texas ICE ‘antifa’ protest case cites deadly Waco siege in big win for Trump DOJ

The federal judge presiding over the trial of nine “antifa” defendants charged with terrorism and attempted murder in relation to a protest at an ICE detention facility in Texas last summer on Tuesday granted a request by the Department of Justice to bar self-defense claims in response to the shooting of a local police officer.

The order by Judge Mark Pittman during a hearing in Fort Worth, Texas — made in light of a ruling arising from the deadly Waco siege of 1993 — forbids defendants from presenting further evidence and argument to claim that one acted in self-defense or in defense of others when he allegedly shot Alvarado Police Lt. Thomas Gross.

The government’s motion asserted that such claims were “legally invalid.”

‘Apparently unarmed’

The new order, only the most recent in a tumultuous series of developments in the Trump administration’s first “antifa” prosecution, came after one defendant alleged that Gross pointed a pistol at a fleeing protester before he was shot.

Pittman’s written order was not immediately available, but his decision from the bench was reported by the defendants’ support committee, which is closely monitoring the trial.

Patrick McLain, an attorney for defendant Zachary Evetts, wrote in a filing on Monday that testimony by Gross and other government witnesses indicates “evidence of self-defense and defense of another.

“Lt. Gross noticed someone running away from him, dressed in black and apparently unarmed,” McLain wrote.

Some testimony has raised questions about whether the protester was armed.

McLain continued: “In that instant, Lt. Gross thought the person running away from him may have had something to do with the words spray-painted on an unoccupied guard shack he had also seen at that moment. Lt. Gross testified he pointed his pistol, loaded with a round in the chamber, at the back of the fleeing person.”

But on Tuesday, setting aside McLain’s argument that Gross’s actions were not a reasonable use of force, Pittman sided with the government’s position that the defendants are precluded from asserting that Song acted in defense of another because they cannot claim they were without fault in the events that led to the shooting.

In remarks from the bench, Pittman echoed the government’s citation of a legal precedent set in the prosecution of members of the Branch Davidian sect during the deadly 1993 siege by the FBI at Waco, Texas, according to the support committee.

The government motion cited a 1996 decision by a panel of judges in the Fifth Circuit finding that a Branch Davidian sect member could not claim self-defense when officers of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) came to the group’s compound to serve arrest warrants for stockpiling weapons.

“A member of a conspiracy to murder federal agents, who dresses for combat, retrieves an assault rifle, and proceeds to the front door to confront government agents executing a lawful warrant, is not entitled to claim the benefit of self-defense when the hoped-for confrontation with the agents occurs,” the judges wrote.

Xavier de Janon, the director of mass defense at the National Lawyers Guild, said the new order could weaken the rights of people attempting to protect themselves against law enforcement aggression.

“I am concerned that the ability to defend oneself against law enforcement when they draw their weapon at you has been placed in danger,” de Janon told Raw Story.

“And some people would say you should not have the ability to self-defend against law enforcement. But there is case law that says people have the right to resist unlawful arrest and unlawful law enforcement conduct.”

De Janon represents Elizabeth Soto, one of the federal defendants, in a separate state prosecution.

The FBI siege at Waco is widely considered to have been a galvanizing event for the U.S far-right, feeding a narrative of government overreach that would inspire conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters, all of whom were involved in the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

President Donald Trump, on whose behalf the Capitol attack was staged, held his first rally of the 2024 presidential campaign in Waco.

Now, with Trump making “antifa” the focal point of his effort to criminalize political opposition through a national security memorandum that broadly condemns views counter to his agenda, DOJ prosecutors are arguing that Song’s actions are analogous to those of the Branch Davidians.

Four ATF agents were among the 86 people killed at Waco. Most sect members died in a massive fire after federal agents attacked.

Outside the Texas ICE facility last July 4, Lt. Gross was reportedly shot in the neck, with the bullet exiting through his back. He was treated at a local hospital and released after four hours.

‘Get to the rifles’

In its motion, the DOJ cited testimony by two corrections officers “that after the defendants were told to leave and that the police had been called, Song remained in place armed with an AR-15 near the roadway from which any law enforcement response would arrive.”

Citing evidence from police body-worn camera footage that Song shouted “get to the rifles” and almost immediately opened fire on Gross, the government argued he could not claim self-defense, while directly quoting the Fifth Circuit ruling on the Branch Davidians.

De Janon said Judge Pittman’s order shouldn’t affect the other defendants. With or without self-defense, there are numerous ways to challenge the government’s accusation, he said.

And while the order hurts Song’s defense, the government still has a burden to overcome to prove its case.

“This is an attempted murder charge,” de Janon said. “They will have to prove malice aforethought. They will have to prove premeditation. Not all is lost. They will have to prove every single element of attempted murder. It’s everything — identity of the shooter, that an intent was formed not just to hurt, but to kill.

“The sequence of events could still weaken the state’s theory given the fact it was Gross who drew his firearm first.”

The government argued that allowing defendants to claim self-defense “can only serve as a thinly veiled attempt to encourage the jury to nullify any verdict in this case.”

The judge’s order to bar evidence of self-defense comes only a week after he declared a mistrial after interrupting a defense attorney questioning prospective jurors about whether they believed it was appropriate to bring guns to a protest.

Prospective jurors had spoken against ICE operations and expressed broad disapproval of the Trump administration.

Trump DOJ’s big ‘antifa’ ICE case runs into trouble over shootout evidence

Defendants on trial in Texas in the Trump administration’s first “antifa” prosecution are claiming self-defense, in answer to attempted murder and terrorism charges stemming from a chaotic confrontation outside an ICE detention facility that culminated with the shooting of a local police officer.

After defense lawyers cross-examined Alvarado police Lt. Thomas Gross, who suffered minor injuries after allegedly being shot by one of the nine defendants, the government last Friday filed a motion in court in Fort Worth, seeking to bar defendants from making a self-defense claim.

The government argues that because any claim of self-defense or defense of others was “legally unsupportable,” introducing evidence or arguments that raise that defense would amount to “a thinly veiled attempt to encourage the jury to nullify any verdict in this case.”

Benjamin Song, the alleged shooter, and four other defendants could face life imprisonment if convicted of attempted murder of law enforcement officers.

The issue of self-defense in the actions of the nine defendants accused of carrying out a “coordinated attack” on the Prairieland ICE facility arises amid a lingering national outcry over the January killing of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old protester, by two Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis.

When he was shot, Pretti was carrying a handgun in accordance with Minnesota law. He did not draw the weapon before being shot multiple times.

Claims by administration members including President Donald Trump himself that Pretti should not have brought his gun to a protest met with bipartisan scorn, including among hardline gun rights groups.

While polling shows that ICE’s actions are widely unpopular, the government could face an additional hurdle with jurors in the Prairieland case, given that Texas is a state with broad support for gun rights.

“Our law is that you can open carry,” Greg Abbott, the state’s conservative Republican governor who is in the middle of a reelection campaign, declared at a January event following Pretti’s death.

“There are protests and other activities that occur all the time when people are carrying guns and doing so lawfully.”

Protest or attack?

Federal prosecutors and investigators have strenuously objected to the defendants’ description of events at the Prairieland Detention Center outside Fort Worth on July 4, 2025 as a “protest,” insisting it was an “attack.”

The defendants said they shot off fireworks to cheer up immigrants inside the facility. Prosecutors argue they fired “explosives” and vandalized government vehicles and a guard shack, in a ploy to draw law enforcement into an ambush.

The original indictment in the case came only three weeks after President Trump issued an executive order designating “antifa” as a domestic terrorist organization while describing the amorphous left-wing movement as “a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States government.”

When the government unveiled the final indictment last November, Robert Cerna, acting director for the ICE Dallas Field Office, described the July 4 incident as a “coordinated attack” carried out “to sow anarchy and to undermine the rule of law.”

A response filed on Monday by the lawyer for one defendant charged with attempted murder directly challenges the government’s theory of the case.

Patrick McLain, who represents Zachary Evetts, wrote that testimony by government witnesses indicates “evidence of self-defense and defense of another.”

Citing Gross’ testimony, McLain wrote that the officer emerged from his squad car “with pistol raised in one hand” after receiving a report of a lone person attempting to enter the ICE facility.

“Lt. Gross noticed someone running away from him, dressed in black and apparently unarmed,” McLain wrote.

“In that instant, Lieutenant Gross thought the person running away from him may have had something to do with the words spray-painted on an unoccupied guard shack he had also seen at that moment. Lt. Gross testified that he pointed his pistol, loaded with a round in the chamber, at the back of the fleeing person.”

Video presented in court last week showed that within six seconds of Gross’s arrival on the scene, Song fired a rifle at Gross, and Gross fired back, McLain wrote.

The lawyer went on to say testimony from another officer that a bullet struck the magazine of Song’s rifle suggests Gross pointed his pistol at Song.

The government argued in its motion that “any assertion of self-defense or defense of others is legally unsupportable,” in part because defendants cannot legally show that Gross’s “display of force in pointing his weapon at a non-compliant defendant” was unreasonable.

McLain countered that Gross’s actions were “objectively unreasonable,” citing a 1985 Supreme Court decision, Tennessee v. Garner, which ruled “that deadly force is only allowed to apprehend felons who the police officer has probable cause to believe pose a ‘significant threat of death or serious physical injury’ to them or to the public.”

In Garner, McLain wrote, the high court ruled that the officer “violated the Fourth Amendment by shooting a fleeing burglary suspect, who did not appear to be armed, in the back of the head.

“Here, Lt. Gross was presented with a situation that, in the moment, he had no reason to believe involved a felony at all, let alone one in which a personal already running away from him was likely to present a ‘significant threat of death or serious physical injury,’” McLain wrote in his stinging retort.

“Even if someone ‘trying to get in’ to PDC could have warranted Lt. Gross’s response, the individual at whom he took aim was running in the opposite direction. Lt. Gross’s act of aiming his firearm at the back of an unarmed fleeing person, a misdemeanant at best and nonviolent felon at worst, was objectively unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.”

An email to the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas seeking comment went unreturned.

‘Yet another questionable move’

The defendants’ supporters flagged the motion to bar a self-defense claim as a sign of desperation on the government’s part.

“This is yet another questionable move by federal prosecutors in this unprecedented case, with the potential of seriously eroding the defendants’ ability to have a fair trial and adequate defense,” said Xavier T. de Janon, a lawyer representing a federal defendant in a parallel state criminal case.

“The government seeks to take away crucial, fact-based issues out of the hands of the jury, in the middle of the trial, after the evidence has already been introduced.”

‘Never sensed danger’: Friends ponder Mar-a-Lago gunman’s motive — and anger over Epstein

The young man who drove from North Carolina to south Florida and breached the perimeter of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort while armed with a shotgun and gas can, and was killed by law enforcement, was a quiet and sensitive community college student from a conservative background, those who knew him said.

“I never got weird energy from him,” one former classmate told Raw Story. “I never sensed any danger.”

But as the FBI attempts to establish what led Austin Tucker Martin to his death in the early hours of last Sunday, reports and social media posts by acquaintances reviewed by Raw Story suggest the 21-year-old was concerned about the ongoing publication of files related to the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his links to powerful people — including President Trump.

One former classmate said Martin “did what he did in retaliation for what’s being allowed in this government.”

‘Shooting position’

As in the cases of Thomas Matthew Crooks and Ryan Routh, would-be assassins who targeted Trump in 2024, attempts to establish Martin’s motive continue.

Crooks was shot dead after using an assault rifle to shoot at Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania in July 2024, wounding the president’s ear. Routh, who that September lay in wait for Trump at one of his golf courses in West Palm Beach, Florida, was recently sentenced to life in prison.

In Martin’s case, the FBI investigation of his fatal arrival at Mar-a-Lago has included a tracing of the route the 21-year-old took to Florida, before allegedly driving through a gate at Trump’s resort at 1:30 a.m. on Sunday.

Trump was not in residence at the time.

Encountering two Secret Service agents and a Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputy, Martin raised the shotgun “to a shooting position,” investigators said.

In response to an inquiry from Raw Story, an FBI spokesperson declined to clarify whether the shotgun was loaded.

Investigators are also scrutinizing purchases and interactions with others, interviewing family and friends, and looking at social media, according to the FBI.

‘So shocking’

Around the time Martin showed up at Mar-a-Lago, a relative reportedly contacted the Moore County Sheriff’s Office to report him missing.

Moore County is renowned for its world-class golf courses and as a bedroom community for military veterans drawn to the area by nearby Fort Bragg.

Martin attended Sandhills Community College, where he was pursuing an associate degree in architectural engineering, a spokesperson confirmed to Raw Story. He had also worked at a local golf course.

Emma Witham, who graduated alongside Martin from Union Pines High School in 2023, recalled a classmate in her senior English class who was quiet and kind.

Based on a shared interest in art, Witham said, Martin asked for her social media usernames. The two exchanged messages on Snapchat, and Martin sent Witham comic-book style renderings of superheroes and rockets.

“I never got weird energy from him,” Witham told Raw Story. “I never sensed any danger. This was so shocking to me that something like this would happen so close to home.”

Although Witham said Martin didn’t speak about political beliefs, she told Raw Story she took him to be “probably a more conservative person, based on the area where we live. He was a Southern kid.”

Another former classmate, Keegan Platte, wrote in a Facebook post reviewed by Raw Story that Martin was a “heavily conservative Trump supporter” when he knew him as a freshman.

In the 2024 election, Moore County heavily favored Trump, giving him 64.1 percent of the vote compared to 34.7 percent to Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.

In 2022, Moore County was the site of an attack on two electrical substations resulting in a widespread power outage apparently timed to disrupt a drag show at a local theater. The event drew protests, with many opponents falsely accusing drag performers of “grooming” children.

The substation attack, which remains unsolved, was faulted for the death of an 87-year-old woman dependent on an oxygen machine.

‘Evil is real and unmistakable’

Martin appears to have been upset by recent revelations about Epstein and his links to powerful people including President Trump.

A shotgun and a gasoline canister A shotgun and a gasoline canister, in a photograph released by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office. PBSO/via REUTERS

According to a text message obtained by TMZ, Martin told a coworker: “I don’t know if you read up on the Epstein Files, but evil is real and unmistakable.

“The best people like you and I can do is use what little influence we have,” Martin wrote. “Tell other people about what you hear about the Epstein files and what the government is doing. Raise awareness.”

Platte wrote on Facebook that he believes his former classmate at Union Pines High School “did what he did in retaliation for what’s being allowed in this government.”

Platte also hailed Martin as a “soldier,” saying that he “went out a hero, in my book, even if he didn’t succeed in his mission.”

Epstein was once a frequent guest at Mar-a-Lago, and although he and Trump reportedly severed ties in mid-2000s, their close association has become a source of increasing vexation for the president and his administration.

While no evidence has emerged that Trump’s association with Epstein involved criminal wrongdoing on the president’s part, NPR recently found that the Department of Justice withheld some files referencing allegations that Trump abused a minor from its congressionally mandated release of materials related to the Epstein case.

Raw Story was unable to reach Martin’s family members. A voicemail message recorded by Christina Fields, Martin’s aunt, said, “Please respect our family’s privacy as we grieve the loss of a family member, and do not leave any media inquiries on this voicemail.”

‘In the back’

Martin’s digital footprint appears to be limited to a Facebook page displaying his meticulous pencil drawings.

He received a tour of the Golf Club at Quail Ridge in Sanford, N.C. from the head golf pro about a year ago, after requesting permission to draw the greens, Chuck Smith, a club owner, told Raw Story.

Martin offered to split proceeds from selling the drawings and three were displayed in the gift shop, Smith said.

Smith said that after he learned about Martin’s death at Mar-a-Lago, he took the drawings down and stashed them “in the back.”

Smith said Martin worked at a different golf course: Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in Southern Pines.

A person who answered the phone at the front desk there hung up when asked about Martin. The club’s general manager did not respond to an email.

Agents from the FBI Charlotte office have searched the residence where Martin lived with his parents in Cameron, N.C. The FBI also appears to have taken an interest in Sandhills Community College, where Martin was a student.

“Our sympathies go out to the student’s family and friends,” Jennifer Pearce, marketing and public relations director for the college, told Raw Story. “We’re cooperating with the FBI.”

'Visceral rage': Family of 'Texas Antifa' defendants say judge wants hostile jury

The judge overseeing the so-called “Texas Antifa” case of nine defendants accused of attacking an ICE detention facility abruptly declared a mistrial on Tuesday, while scolding a defense lawyer for reportedly wearing a tee-shirt displaying civil rights icons.

But in a case widely seen as a test of the Trump administration strategy of criminalizing the antifascist movement and collectively punishing political opposition, friends and family members on the defendants’ support committee said they see another reason for the action by Judge Mark T. Pittman, who was appointed by President Donald Trump.

The jury pool, such observers say, was unexpectedly cool to the Trump administration generally and more specifically to federal immigration enforcement.

Amber Lowrey, whose sister Savanna Batten is among the Texas defendants, told Raw Story that when prosecutors questioned potential jurors, “a lot … spoke out about what ICE is doing and expressed disapproval for the Trump administration,” while “some had family members affected by deportation.”

Batten is charged with material support for terrorists. The basis for the charge, Lowrey said, was bringing a first aid kit to the Prairieland ICE facility on July 4 last year, where some defendants allegedly set off fireworks and vandalized property.

Batten, Lowrey said, had never met Benjamin Song, the only defendant charged with an act of violence, for the alleged nonfatal shooting of a police officer outside the facility.

Lowrey said court proceedings took a dramatic turn when a defense lawyer, MarQuetta Clayton, asked jurors to rate from one to five their agreement with the statement, “You cannot bring a gun to a protest.”

Responses were mixed, Lowrey said, but “neutral and disagree were more prominent than no, you absolutely cannot.”

At that point, Lowrey said, Pittman became “agitated” and told Clayton: “I don’t think you’re making good use of your time or the court’s time.”

After sending out the prospective jurors, Pittman scolded Clayton for her shirt, which reportedly depicted the Rev. Martin Luther King, Shirley Chisholm and “other civil rights protesters.”

Lowrey and other members of the support committee who watched from an overflow courtroom told Raw Story they were unable to make out the images on the shirt.

Pittman called a recess and said he was going to research the matter. When he returned, the judge announced he was declaring a mistrial.

Pittman appeared to be distressed by potential jurors’ responses to questioning by government and defense lawyers, Lowrey and other supporters said.

“He stated the jury had shown him that we are a ‘house divided,’” Lowrey said. “He said, ‘We’re too divided. We’re going to end up imploding on ourselves.’”

Lydia Koza, whose wife Autumn Hill is a defendant, said the judge made a remark about “fearing that his son would have to fight in a second civil war.”

‘Not going to get a fair trial’

Pittman ordered a new trial beginning on Monday.

“I believe the prosecution and the judge were not thrilled with the anti-ICE and anti-Trump sentiment in the jury pool,” Lowrey said. “I believe they are trying to roll the dice and get a more Trump-friendly jury.”

Support committee members also said it appeared clear that when a jury is selected and lawyers present arguments, defendants facing life imprisonment will have to closely regulate their emotions, to avoid drawing Pittman’s ire.

Lowrey told Raw Story she learned from her sister that federal marshals “told them that if they cry in court they will be removed from the courtroom because it makes the judge angry.

“They also told them that if they talk to, look at or ‘signal’ anyone in their family in court, the family will be removed from the courtroom and they will never see them in court again.”

“Visceral rage,” Lowrey said. “These people are not going to get a fair trial if this judge has anything to say about it.”

Katherine Miller, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, had no comment.

Pittman could not be reached for this story.

Clayton’s law firm provided a statement saying she would not be able to speak publicly about Pittman’s displeasure over her shirt before conclusion of the trial and before a show cause hearing — indicating the judge is considering holding her in contempt.

‘Sheer volume of discovery’

Defense counsel have already been sanctioned in the case.

Last month, Pittman fined four lawyers $500 each for filing what he considered excessive and “frivolous” discovery motions.

Meanwhile, the judge is limiting the nine defendants’ time to make their case by denying a motion to expand the time allotted for each opening statement from eight to 20 minutes, while the government has 30 minutes.

Similarly, the government will have 45 minutes to make its closing argument, while each defendant will receive only 12 minutes.

Patrick McLain, the lawyer for defendant Zachary Evetts, said in a motion denied by Pittman that the time allotment violates his client’s Sixth Amendment right to effective counsel.

McLain said he plans to “challenge both the existence of a criminal conspiracy and the accuracy of the government witnesses’ description of events.”

The defendants are collectively challenging the government’s argument that their actions at the Prairieland ICE facility added up to an insurrectionary attack motivated by an ideological intent to overthrow the government.

Many of the defendants are expected to make arguments that differ from Song, as the one individual accused of firing a weapon.

While noting that the judge has called the case “complex” due to “the number of conspirators” and “sheer volume of discovery,” McLain said the time allotment is simply inadequate “to deliver an effective closing argument” and to address each of 10 counts his client faces.

The government has claimed the presence of firearms and body armor in a wagon and a parked car during the protest, along with first aid kits, proves that all nine defendants planned a violent attack.

‘Not risk of being killed’

Lawyers for the defendants previewed a potential Second Amendment defense during a probable cause and detention hearing last September, suggesting their clients’ actions were motivated by a concern they might need to defend themselves against state security forces.

Cross-examining FBI Special Agent Clark Wiethorn, the government’s chief fact witness, Cody Lee Cofer, Hill’s lawyer, said, “You’re telling me that it’s your opinion that it is not a risk for someone that is out protesting in the presence of law enforcement, for that person to be injured or killed by law enforcement?”

“A person peacefully protesting, I would say there’s not risk of being killed by law enforcement,” Wiethorn testified.

That was four months before two Border Patrol agents fatally shot Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse who was legally carrying a firearm, on a snowy street in Minneapolis.

That incident was greeted with widespread outrage, as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem disparaged Pretti as a “domestic terrorist.”

Trump antifa terror claim faces stern test in trial of ICE firework protesters

A trial set to begin on Tuesday in Fort Worth, Texas will test whether President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice can use a criminalized notion of “antifa” to convict nine anti-ICE activists of attempted murder and terrorism, after they shot fireworks and vandalized government vehicles.

On July 4 last year, most of the defendants showed up at the Prairieland ICE detention facility 25 miles south of Fort Worth to put on a fireworks display for immigrant detainees. A smaller group used spray paint to graffiti vehicles in the parking lot.

They dressed in black and concealed their faces with masks — a tactic commonly known as “black bloc.” One activist, former Marine Corps reservist Benjamin Song, carried an AR-15 rifle. A wagon nearby was stocked with an additional rifle, body armor and bottled water. One activist had guns in his car.

The defendants say they intended to hold a noise demonstration and set off fireworks to cheer up detainees. The government claims the fireworks were meant to draw officers out of the facility and elicit a law enforcement response.

About 45 minutes after the activists arrived, the government alleges, Song opened fire and struck a local police officer, Lt. Thomas Gross, who returned fire. Treated for his injuries, Gross was able to return to full duty within two months.

The indictment suggests that when the shots were fired, the other activists intended to retrieve guns and escalate an attack, based at least in part on a command allegedly yelled by Song: “Get to the rifles!”

Statements from some defendants and their lawyers suggest they were blindsided by the shooting and fled in terror.

The 12-count indictment, which describes the group as an “antifa cell,” charges four defendants alongside Song with attempted murder of law enforcement officers, even though the government acknowledges Song was the only shooter. A larger cohort is charged alongside Song with providing material support for terrorists.

‘Criminalizing speech’

Following the assassination last September of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, President Trump issued an executive order “designating antifa as a domestic terrorist organization.” The order describes “antifa” — a decentralized movement of people who oppose fascism — as “a militaristic, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law.”

About three weeks later, the first indictment against the Prairieland defendants repeated the language of Trump’s order almost completely.

The indictment described the defendants as members of “a North Texas Antifa cell,” while defining “antifa” as “a militant enterprise made up of individuals and small groups … which explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States government, law enforcement authorities, and the system of law.”

As part of the government’s effort to build an “enterprise” case around the defendants’ supposed adherence to “antifa” ideology and hold them jointly liable for the shooting, prosecutors have highlighted some defendants’ involvement in printing political literature.

The indictment describes three as being “part of a group that created and distributed insurrectionary materials called ‘zines.’”

During their detention hearing last September, FBI Special Agent Joseph Clark Wiethorn described a search warrant executed on the Fort Worth home of defendants Ines and Elizabeth Soto, a married couple.

“We discovered, for lack of a better word, a printing production with multiple commercial-grade equipment, paper binders, cutters, industrial copiers, all for producing what we have discovered to be anarchist-type material and reading,” Wiethorn testified.

The government plans to call Kyle Shideler, director for homeland security and counterterrorism at the far-right Center for Security Policy, as an expert witness.

Shideler endorsed the government’s definition of “antifa” in the Prairieland case before a U.S. Senate subcommittee last October. He touted the material support for terrorists statute as a tool to crack down on “antifa.”

“These networks can be targeted for engaging in material support for terrorism,” Shideler told lawmakers. “We are not talking about speech; we are talking about manifestos describing how to overthrow the government and how to do that with violence.”

Lydia Koza, whose wife Autumn Hill is among the defendants charged with attempted murder, told Raw Story she believes the government’s case is all about speech.

“They’re trying to throw everybody who could be even slightly ideologically opposed to Trump into this bucket of ‘antifa’ so they can be prosecuted,” she said.

“This is a huge reason why this case should be alarming to everyone. This is criminalizing speech. There are precedents in American history, and none of them are good.”

‘Peaceful demonstration’

“My understanding is that everybody thought this was pretty standard and intended to be a peaceful demonstration, a noise demonstration,” Koza said. “Everybody anticipated coming home.”

Hill was arrested the day after the July 4 action, when the FBI broke down her door in the middle of dinner and marched her outside barefoot.

During Hill’s detention hearing, Agent Wiethorn testified that he didn’t know where Hill was in proximity to Song when the shooting took place, or even if she was still at the detention facility.

Cody Cofer, Hill’s lawyer, asked Wiethorn to explain how Hill “helped” Song.

“I think by participating in the attack with Mr. Song would be helping him,” Wiethorn replied.

“And so, how did Ms. Hill participate in the attack?” Cofer asked.

“With the presence with — showing up in black bloc — showing up and shooting off fireworks into the facility, participating in this group that had organized themselves, had planned, had prepared, had brought weapons, body armor, medical kits,” Wiethorn said.

The indictment charges Hill, Song and three others with the attempted murder of not only the police officer who responded to the scene, but also of two ICE corrections officers who were not injured.

Similarly, the lawyer for Elizabeth Soto asked Agent Wiethorn if there was any evidence her client “was anything but present” on the night of the shooting.

Wiethorn said Soto participated in planning chats on Signal, although elsewhere he testified that there had been no discussion of shooting at police. Wiethorn also said Soto traveled to the event with her husband, who brought “multiple trauma kits.”

Soto “was aware of what they were doing, was part of this group that had an understanding of overall intent,” the agent testified.

‘Six inches from being murdered’

Zachary Evetts, a defendant charged with attempted murder, told Anne Speckhard, a psychology professor who interviewed him in pre-trial detention, he went to Prairieland anticipating a “peaceful, although loud” demonstration, according to an expert report she submitted on his behalf.

Evetts told Speckhard, who leads the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism at Georgetown University, he was terrified when he heard gunshots.

“I’m running and see two correction officers, one female, and there is gunfire to the left of me,” Evetts said. “I was afraid I was going to get shot. I was very afraid. I have to run now or I’ll die.”

Speckhard concluded that the “available evidence establishes that the defendants prepared for a noise demonstration involving fireworks … undermining claims of planned violent escalation.”

Prosecutors have asked Judge Mark Pittman to remove Speckhard as an expert witness, objecting to “improper opinion testimony.” Pittman said last week Speckhard’s language “gives the court pause” but declined to bar her testimony, saying he was open to revisiting the matter at trial.

Koza told Raw Story she believes the government included Hill in the case because to do otherwise would be a tacit acknowledgement that shooting off fireworks doesn’t add up to a conspiracy to escalate a violent attack.

“One of the things I noticed during the preliminary hearing is that the government is careful to not say, ‘Protest,’” Koza said. “They say, ‘Ambush, ambush, ambush,’ and, ‘Attack, attack, attack.’ They want to say that it isn’t possible that anything legitimate happened that night. I think prosecuting her is part of making the case that there is no good protester in this instance.”

During the detention hearing last September, previewing the argument the government is likely to make at trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Shawn Smith cited anarchist zines printed in the Sotos’ garage.

“These individuals were involved in a long-running conspiracy that started with this philosophy centered around what I’ve called and labeled the printers,” Smith said. “They’re the ideological heads of this group. They are rendering assistance passing this information, this antifa information, this deep-seated hatred of the government.”

Moving on to the gunfire on July 4 outside the ICE facility, Smith again cited black bloc, fireworks and vandalism.

“They acted in concert,” he said, adding: “They don’t have to each hold a gun, but they’re part of a common plan and scheme: Destruction and murder. Attempted murder in this case. Six inches from being murdered.”

Beyond the potential culpability of the eight defendants involved in setting off fireworks, vandalism and producing zines, the actions of Song, the one person alleged to have fired a weapon, loom over the trial.

During the detention hearing, Song’s lawyer wrested an acknowledgement from Agent Wiethorn that he didn’t know if Lt. Thomas Gross unholstered his weapon before Song fired.

Speckhard wrote that “available evidence establishes that the shooting was not premeditated or coordinated and may have occurred as an impulsive response to aggressive police action by a single individual, rather than as part of a planned or directed attack.”

Prosecutors plan to call Gross to testify. In a witness list filed with the court, Song indicated he intends to take the stand in his own defense.

Ex-Jack Smith deputy rebukes Bondi after House hearing — and mounts Dem run for Congress

JP Cooney, a former federal prosecutor turned Democratic candidate for the U.S. House in Virginia’s proposed Seventh District, rebuked his former boss, Attorney General Pam Bondi, for telling a House panel on Wednesday his former division engaged in “weaponization.”

“I can tell you which administration that the weaponization was ended under,” Bondi said in a fiery exchange with Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO) during a House Judiciary Committee hearing.

Cooney, a former top deputy to special counsel Jack Smith who helped prosecute President Donald Trump, was fired from the Department of Justice last February, as part of a purge at the public integrity section when Bondi took over.

He told Raw Story the Trump administration had converted the DOJ “from a tool of justice into a political tool to support Donald Trump.”

“I worked in the public integrity section for years,” Cooney said. “I served in Republican administrations and Democratic administrations.

“The Justice Department that I worked in always served the rule of law. We conducted every investigation without fear or favor. That’s no longer the case, much less with a president like this one who has converted it into his own weapon.”

On the Hill, Neguse also questioned Bondi about the hiring of the former FBI agent Jared Wise as a senior DOJ advisor, after Wise was charged with assaulting law enforcement during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“This is who you choose as the chief law enforcement officer of the United States of America to hire at the Department of Justice — someone on video yelling, ‘Kill ’em,’ at police officers?” Neguse asked.

“I believe he was pardoned by President Trump,” Bondi said.

“Oh, he was pardoned,” Neguse said. “… Pardoned by President Trump for his offense. Pardoned for yelling, ‘Kill ’em,’ at police officers. And yet you expect hard-working police officers across the country to believe that you take law enforcement seriously.”

Bondi offered no further comment.

Cooney told Raw Story the exchange “should tell you everything you need to know about why Americans have lost trust in the Justice Department, and the threat it poses to the public.”

‘Could not be more proud’

Smith’s election subversion indictment against Trump for conspiracy to defraud the United States, which Cooney helped prosecute, highlighted January 6 as a consequence of Trump’s campaign to overturn the 2020 election.

After then-Vice President Mike Pence made it known that he would not join Trump’s scheme, the indictment charged, “a large and angry crowd — including many individuals whom [Trump] had deceived into believing the vice president could and might change the election results — violently attacked the Capitol and halted the proceeding.

“As violence ensued,” Trump and his co-conspirators “exploited the disruption by redoubling efforts to levy false claims of election fraud and convince members of Congress to further delay the certification based on those claims.”

Smith moved to dismiss criminal charges arising from his work in November 2024, after Trump won re-election, then filed his final report in January 2025, before Trump returned to the White House.

A prominent target of Trump and supporters, who claim victimization, Smith testified before Congress last month, strongly defending his work and that of his team.

Cooney told Raw Story he “could not be more proud” of his work with Smith, and “could not be more proud of the integrity, independence that [Smith] displayed and that everyone in that office displayed.”

Cooney said he was motivated to run for Congress by the lawlessness of the Trump administration.

“I’m going to bring the experience that I have — 18 years at the Justice Department prosecuting cases against the most powerful lawbreakers — to bear on this unprecedented circumstance, to stand up against lawbreakers like Donald Trump, to restore civility and competence to government.”

‘Abuses of power’

Cooney also pointed to recent events in Minneapolis, saying the death of Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse, at the hands of Border Patrol agents helped him decide to run.

“There’s no question that when I learned about the Border Patrol’s killing of Alex Pretti, a man who was engaged in lawful, constitutional activity, and I heard Secretary Kristi Noem’s despicable slander [of Pretti], I was motivated to stand up and run for office, to provide the kind of leadership that is so desperately needed,” Cooney said.

“We have a Republican Congress that is complicit in the abuses of power that Secretary Noem has carried out.”

In the immediate aftermath of Pretti’s death, Noem said Pretti had intended to kill law enforcement officers. Pretti was licensed to carry a gun which he did not draw. Agents removed it before Pretti was shot multiple times.

‘Lawless playbook’

Before he can begin to hold Trump accountable as a member of the legislative branch, Cooney will have to win election in a cycle in which Trump has signaled an intention to interfere — telling former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino that Republicans should “take over the voting” in “15 places.”

Fulton County raid FBI agents at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center in Union City, Georgia. REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer

The FBI recently seized 2020 ballots from an election center outside Atlanta, based on a search warrant containing omissions one former FBI lawyer said DOJ supervisors would typically “flag and send back.”

Cooney’s campaign rhetoric echoes the prosecutorial case Jack Smith’s team made in the indictment filed against Trump in August 2023.

“What I see now is an indication of Donald Trump’s realization that he’s lost the confidence and lost the trust of the American people,” Cooney told Raw Story.

“This is the same lawless playbook that he turned to after the 2020 election, to defraud Americans of their rightful results of that election.

“It gives me great hope for our future, because it demonstrates that Americans have lost confidence in the president and are prepared to stand up and restore us to a respected, principled and faithful nation.”

Top FBI agent who tracked MN assassin switched to probe ICE victims: 'Americans less safe'

In June 2025, following a two-day manhunt leading to the arrest of Vance Boelter, FBI Special Agent Terry Getsch submitted an affidavit supporting criminal charges in the murder of Melissa Hortman, a former Democratic speaker of the Minnesota House, and her husband, Mark Hortman, and the wounding of a second legislator and his wife.

Boelter, who posed as a police officer and had a list of 70 targets including Democrats, civic leaders and abortion providers, was described in the affidavit as pursuing “a planned campaign of stalking and violence designed to inflict, fear, injure, and kill members of the Minnesota state legislature and their families.”

Last month, in a federal courtroom in St. Paul, Getsch testified for the U.S. government in an entirely different kind of case.

The seven-year FBI veteran was the government’s sole witness as prosecutors sought to sustain charges against two Venezuelan immigrants accused of assaulting an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, one of whom had been shot in the thigh by the agent as the two men ran away then retreated into their house.

Getsch’s path from building a case against the man responsible for arguably the worst act of political violence in Minnesota history to investigating immigrants accused of assaulting officers while resisting deportation offers a striking picture of how the FBI Minneapolis office has been repositioned to meet the demands of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Tensions boil

The assassination of the Hortmans in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park briefly dominated national headlines, part of a troubling rise in political violence in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term.

In contrast, the shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis by an ICE agent on the city’s north side on Jan. 14 barely registered a blip in the news cycle, a week after another ICE agent fatally shot Renee Good.

By the time two Border Patrol agents fatally shot Alex Pretti on Jan. 24, the Sosa-Celis’ shooting was all but forgotten. Nonetheless, when it happened, with tensions at a boil over Good’s death, federal agents were ultimately forced to retreat, after shooting teargas at protesters.

The incident began when Sosa-Celis’ roommate, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, had been driving a silver Ford Focus while making Door Dash deliveries when an unmarked vehicle activated blue lights and siren. Aljorna panicked and called Sosa-Celis, who suggested he come back home.

After crashing the car into a snowbank, Aljorna ran towards the house as an ICE agent chased on foot. As Sosa-Celis waited at the door, Aljorna slipped. The ICE agent tackled him, only for Aljorna to slip out of his jacket and break loose. As Aljorna and Sosa-Celis ran into the house, the ICE agent fired his pistol, striking Sosa-Celis in his upper right thigh.

News of the shooting spread quickly. An angry crowd gathered as federal agents swarmed the neighborhood. ICE agents shot teargas into a window, behind which Sosa-Celis and his girlfriend, Aljorna and his wife, and two children were hiding.

The FBI Minneapolis’ Violent Crime Squad, of which Getsch is a member, and its Evidence Response Team responded to the scene, with personnel from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. The FBI deployment also included Elijah Steimle, a special agent from Wisconsin with a background investigating “complex financial crimes,” who was on rotation to support Minneapolis immigration enforcement.

The federal prosecution of Sosa-Celis and Aljorna is not the only case in which Getsch has investigated alleged assaults on immigrations agents. Last December, Getsch drew up the affidavit to support charges against a Nigerian man who overstayed a student visa and his girlfriend who are accused of driving off with a Homeland Security agent trapped in their vehicle.

The repositioning of experienced agents to support immigration enforcement comes at a cost, Jonathan Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, told Raw Story.

“As a result of these actions, Americans are less safe today, full stop,” Lewis said. “Every FBI agent reassigned to immigration enforcement is one less agent investigating terrorism cases, crimes against children by nihilistic violent extremist groups, and lone actor plots to conduct acts of mass violence.”

‘Complex cases’

Last summer, in addition to the assassination of the Hortmans, Minneapolis was the site of a mass shooting targeting school children at a Catholic church, resulting in the deaths of two boys, ages 8 and 10.

The perpetrator, Robin Westman, who took her own life, was reportedly immersed in online communities that promote misanthropy, celebrate mass shooters and reward perpetrators of extreme violence and exploitation.

“Compounding this resourcing shift is the loss of institutional knowledge within the bureau,” Lewis said.

“These are complex cases that require subject matter expertise, and the loss of experienced personnel over the last year has exacerbated the issue.

“Foreign terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaida are strategic actors who will undoubtedly seek to leverage these opportunities to conduct attacks in the homeland.

“Meanwhile, domestic violent extremist networks on the right continue to take advantage of the permissive environment afforded them, spurred on by incendiary and dehumanizing rhetoric from official government Twitter accounts.”

The FBI’s Minneapolis office declined to comment.

‘A bloody gash’

When ICE agents ran the license plate number on Aljorna’s car on Jan. 14, the man whose name came up was nine years older, five inches shorter, and 44 pounds lighter.

But Aljorna, according to a court filing by his lawyer, had come to the U.S. illegally while fleeing “turmoil and danger” in Venezuela. Sosa-Celis also came to the U.S. illegally from Venezuela but was granted temporary protected status, according to his lawyer.

Both men drove for Door Dash. The two men told the FBI and state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigators they generally worked at night, believing they were less likely to encounter ICE, according to the affidavit Getsch helped write.

In addition to facing deportation proceedings, two days after the shooting, Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were federally charged with aiding and abetting assault of a deportation officer.

Raw Story’s account of the events of Jan. 14 comes from cross-referencing court documents in three cases, along with a Bureau of Criminal Apprehension press release.

Based on the affidavit supporting criminal charges, an unidentified ICE agent told the FBI that while he was tussling with Aljorna, Sosa-Celis started hitting him in the face with a broom handle, then handed the broom to Aljorna, who also struck him with the handle.

The ICE agent also told the FBI “a third Hispanic male” who has not been located hit him with a snow shovel.

The ICE agent told the FBI that as a result of shielding himself from the broom strikes, the palm of his hand was cut. The affidavit states that the FBI reviewed a photograph that showed “a bloody gash that is consistent with this injury.”

Based on Getsch’s testimony in federal court in St. Paul on Jan. 21, a magistrate judge found probable cause to sustain the charges against Sosa-Celis and Aljorna.

Both men deny striking the ICE agent with a broom handle or a snow shovel.

Gretsch’s testimony reflected that the agent who shot Sosa-Celis was the only witness who claimed he was attacked, according to a court filing by the defendant’s lawyer.

Aljorna’s lawyer said that Aljorna’s wife and Sosa-Celis’ girlfriend, who witnessed the altercation from the doorway 10 feet away, did not corroborate the ICE agent’s claim that the two men attacked him.

Surveillance video from the city of Minneapolis likewise does not show the men assaulting the ICE agent, the lawyer said.

The filing by Aljorna’s lawyer raises the possibility that the ICE agent’s “claims of being assaulted with a broom or shovel are not credible and were in fact made up to create a justification for [the agent’s] use of deadly force that did not exist.”

The evidence that Aljorna engaged in any act of violence “comes from a witness with a powerful motive to create a false narrative to justify why he shot at two unarmed men running away from him at a distance of 10 feet,” the lawyer said.

The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has opened a use-of-force investigation on the ICE agent, at the request of Minneapolis Police.

The state law enforcement agents have been rebuffed in their efforts to interview the ICE agent and have not learned his identity, the state agency said.

The FBI has refused to share information from its initial investigation, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said.

‘SA Getsch did not know’

In some respects, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has outflanked the FBI.

Getsch and a colleague, Special Agent Timothy G. Schanz, wrote in their affidavit that “law enforcement on scene were unable to locate any shell casing or bullet impact with[in] the subject residence.”

ICE Minneapolis Federal agents scuffle with protesters in Minneapolis. REUTERS/Tim Evans

The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension obtained a search warrant and returned to the house a week after the shooting. Personnel recovered a shell casing and bullet, along with a broom.

The state agency has pledged to continue its investigation. Once it is complete, the agency said, it will present its findings without recommendation to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, for possible prosecution.

But in one key respect, the state agency remains at a disadvantage: Investigators don’t have access to the suspect in the shooting.

When Getsch took the witness stand during Sosa-Celis’ detention hearing, his lawyer pressed the special agent for information about the shooter and the other ICE agent involved in the pursuit.

The lawyer’s remarks emphasized how the ICE agents whose pursuit resulted in a man being shot are not themselves being investigated.

The lawyer wrote: “SA Getsch did not know how old they were, how much law enforcement training and experience they had, how long they had been working for ICE, what directives they had been given in terms of operations in Minneapolis, or how much firearms training they had.”

Election denier indicted for Trump aide death threat as MAGA turns on itself

Three years ago, Jonathan Cagle was a MAGA loyalist, part of a messaging machine that sowed doubts about the outcome of elections and helped build an air of inevitability around Donald Trump’s return to power.

Last week in Alabama, a federal magistrate judge ordered Cagle held without bond, for allegedly cyberstalking U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, the top civil rights official in Trump’s Department of Justice.

As Trump enters the second year of his tempestuous second term, Cagle’s story offers a signpost to growing disillusionment and division on the U.S. far right.

‘Data guy’

In December 2022, following midterm elections that saw Trump-endorsed candidates defeated, Cagle appeared on the Charlie Kirk Show.

The lineup for the three-hour podcast also included Richard Grenell and David Sacks, who would serve in Trump’s second administration: Grenell as presidential envoy for special missions, Sacks as chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Kirk — the conservative influencer who was killed in Utah last September — introduced Cagle as a “financial analyst” and “data guy” who “has had some very interesting tweets and data analysis about what happened in Arizona.”

Kirk’s questions concerned Cagle’s theory that insufficient election infrastructure in Maricopa, Arizona’s most populous county, cost Kari Lake the gubernatorial race by discouraging voters.

“So, Jonathan, is it fair to say that Maricopa County intentionally did not have the infrastructure to be able to facilitate what Kari Lake needed on Election Day?” Kirk asked.

“It would be 100 percent accurate to say that,” Cagle said.

Lake promoted Cagle’s Twitter account, writing that “Jonathan is worth following,” and linking to his account under the username @DecentFiJC.

Later that month, Lake made a personal appeal to Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter (now X), linking to Cagle’s account and posting, “The most Shadow-banned profile on Twitter?? … why is Jonathan being censored? / It is because he is exposing corruption in our Elections and in the ranks of those who run them?”

Now, the @DecentFiJC account is listed as a Cagle alias in an indictment alleging that from Dec. 28, 2025 to Jan. 3, 2026, “with the intent to kill, injure, harass and intimidate Individual-1,” Cagle used the internet “to engage in a course of conduct through which he caused “substantial emotional distress” to the victim — Harmeet Dhillon.

Lake now runs Voice of America for the Trump administration. She could not be reached for comment.

‘My country matters more to me’

During Cagle’s Jan. 28 bond hearing, federal prosecutors identified the victim, “Individual-1,” as Dhillon.

A month prior, on Dec. 28, Cagle directly named Dhillon in an angry, expletive-laced rant on an X space, insinuating without evidence that she was promoting immigration while acting as an agent for Israel.

“Harmeet Dhillon — all of you can get f---ed,” Cagle said, according to a recording reviewed by Raw Story. “My country matters more to me than you do. Promise. Don’t make me prove it to you.

“If you press back on me pressing back on the H-1B issue, your front door, your families and their addresses and contact info are gonna end up on this f---ing platform.”

That was a reference to a visa program that allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers to fill specialized jobs that cannot be filled by domestic workers.

“Then you’re gonna have to run your little subversion operation… with everybody f---ing knowing where you live,” Cagle said.

An Indian-American immigrant, Dhillon grew up in rural North Carolina, the daughter of an orthopedic surgeon.

‘Hanky-panky in the urban districts’

Dhillon has cast doubt on the results of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden.

In an October 2024 interview with Nicole Shanahan, running-mate to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in his unsuccessful independent presidential run, Dhillon promoted a debunked claim that in 2020, Republican observers were prevented from monitoring vote-counting in critical counties.

“The hanky-panky occurs in the urban districts — the urban counties of these swing states,” Dhillon said. “It occurs in Maricopa County. It occurs in Detroit. It occurs in the Wisconsin cities. It occurs in the Pennsylvania cities.

“That’s where the distortion occurs. That’s where you see people in the 2020 election putting up physical barriers and not allowing statutory observation of the ballot counting.”

Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told Raw Story the problem with such conspiracy theories is that they rarely remain contained.

“It’s more than ironic that the election denying conspiracies Dhillon unleashed have resulted in unhinged cyberstalking by an election denier motivated by the same ideas,” Beirich said.

“Once conspiracies are unleashed, which many in the current administration have done, it can lead to more and more extremism. In this case, Cagle appears to have wedded antisemitism that is found on the far right with these conspiracies.

“Dhillon and others in the administration should stop spreading conspiracies that can lead to incidents like this and further violence.”

Dhillon could not be reached for comment. But the assistant attorney general did respond to an email from an anonymous researcher who archived Cagle’s social-media comments and brought them to her attention.

“Thank you for flagging this,” Dhillon wrote, in a message seen by Raw Story. “We are following up.”

‘They need to be terrified’

Cagle’s antisemitic tirades have also targeted Secretary of State Marco Rubio, other Trump officials, and pro-Israel activists.

“Jews are taught from a young age to never admit to what the Jews teach about non-Jews, because we would kill them openly,” Cagle wrote in one post reviewed by Raw Story.

“Instead of ‘impeaching’ Jew judges who aid and abet Jewish blackmail/extortionist pedophile rings and think they have the right to ‘refuse to testify,’ you could always just kill them,” another post reads. “It’s basically how Jews got a ‘homeland,’ except this is 100% righteous.”

“Shut the f--- up, and get back in the oven, Jew,” another post said.

Rachel Carroll Rivas, interim director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told Raw Story that as social movements gain power, as is the case with the far right, “fissures and fractures begin to emerge.”

Antisemitism is a notable point of disagreement in the coalition that brought Trump to power.

“It’s underpinned so much of the right,” Carroll Rivas said. “But some of that is highly coded, and some is very explicit.”

In his X tirade on Dec. 28, Cagle raged that the federal government needs “to be f---ing terrified of the American people. And every time they log in, they need to have second f---ing thoughts before every time they post some subversive horses---, some lies, and work for foreign interests against Americans.

“They need to be terrified to come into the office. The whole day of wake up in the morning, kiss your spouse, you know, and kids, and have a nice breakfast, and then put on the f---ing ‘subvert America’ uniform you wear to f---ing drive on to the security clearance lot and go subvert the United States for Israel, or for the UK, or for any other f---ing country, including China, or Ukraine, or France — those days are over.

“I guarantee that I’m ten times smarter than you on your best day, and a hundred times more dangerous,” Cagle added. “Like, you need to realize that being a f---ing traitor to the United States has f---ing consequences, badge or no f---ing badge.”

Inmate booking photo of Jonathan CagleMorgan County (Ala.) Detention Center

‘I get to ask for that information’

While Cagle faces prosecution, Dhillon has used her authority as the top civil rights official to demand that states turn over voter rolls — moves some critics say sets the stage for the administration to question the results of elections Trump allies do not win.

The FBI’s recent seizure of 2020 ballots from Fulton County, Georgia, despite investigations finding no evidence of wrongdoing, only heightened the fear that Trump intends to use the federal government to undermine the forthcoming midterm elections.

“The attorney general doesn’t have to show her homework as to what she’s going to do with [the voter rolls],” Dhillon told the Independent Institute in December, referring to AG Pam Bondi.

“And I’m her designee, so I get to ask for that information, and they have to give it.”

Neo-Nazis arrested on weapons charges planned to strike 'high value targets,' feds say

Two neo-Nazis arrested last week are accused of buying machine guns as part of an alleged scheme to launch a paramilitary death squad.

Aiden Cuevas, 20, and Andrew Nary, 23, each face a federal charge of conspiracy to traffic in firearms in the Northern District of Alabama.

They were arrested on Jan. 20, according to court records, after Cuevas met an FBI undercover employee and took possession of six illegal firearms with obliterated serial numbers, including three fully automatic weapons.

The arrests follow a year-long undercover operation. An affidavit alleges that Cuevas and the undercover FBI employee met in Madison County, which surrounds Huntsville, last June.

Cuevas “discussed wanting close-quarters battle and urban terrorism training with advanced training on taking out ‘high value targets,’” the affidavit says.

Cuevas and Nary allegedly met the undercover employee on Jan. 12 and paid $1,000 for four weapons, with Cuevas later paying an additional $500 for two weapons for a third man.

Cuevas has an extensive history in the white power movement as an enthusiastic promoter of 2119, a teenage neo-Nazi gang linked to hate crimes against Jews, LGBTQ+ people and others that was the subject of a 2024 Raw Story investigation.

Once host of a chat on the social media platform Telegram promoting skateboarding as a means of indoctrinating alienated young white people into white supremacy, Cuevas has been on the FBI’s radar for some time. At 17, he announced on Telegram that he would be confined at an Alabama juvenile correctional facility because he was “on probation for some bulls--- charge of terroristic threat (by the FBI of course).”

Nary has maintained a lower profile, living in the Charlotte, N.C. area since at least 2019, according to court records. He disclosed in a 2023 Telegram chat reviewed by Raw Story that he worked in mold-remediation and home repair.

In 2020, Nary founded a group called Automata that promotes paramilitary training. The group’s use of skull masks signifies identification with accelerationism, a movement that calls for hastening the collapse of society to lay the groundwork for a white ethnostate.

‘We offer our final solution’

In 2023, Automata issued a propaganda message on Telegram that advised: “It is in the best interests of our people to be prepared for elements beyond our control.

“In a world of chaos, we contend for order. So, brothers, we offer our final solution.”

The “final solution” was a euphemism used by Germany’s Nazi leaders to describe the genocide against 6 million Jews.

Cuevas and Nary made initial appearances before a federal magistrate in Huntsville on Jan. 20, according to federal court records. The government requested detention, and the two men were remanded to the custody of U.S. Marshals.

Messages to Cuevas and Nary’s lawyers requesting comment went unreturned.

Andrew Nary (left) and Aiden CuevasTelegram

During the Jan. 12 meeting, according to the affidavit, Cuevas told the FBI undercover employee the firearms would be used, among other purposes, to “take out Finnegus,” who Cuevas believed was a “snitch.”

The affidavit identifies “Finnegus” as Ryan Christopher Patrick, a North Carolina man with a history of involvement in the white power movement.

Posting under the username “Finnegus,” Patrick was the administrator for the Telegram chat, “Fascher Magazine,” that Cuevas used to promote national socialism through skateboarding culture.

In 2023, Patrick participated in a protest against a drag show held at a yoga studio in Sanford, N.C., alongside Jarrett William Smith, who had served a federal prison sentence for distributing bomb-making instructions on the internet.

Patrick, who wore a skull mask, confirmed his protest participation to Raw Story at the time.

Cuevas appears to blame Patrick for the legal troubles of Kai Nix, a former soldier arrested in August 2024.

Nix was charged with falsely stating on a security clearance application to join the U.S. Army that “he had never been a member of a group dedicated to the use of force to overthrow the United States government,” dealing in firearms without a license, and knowingly possessing and selling a stolen firearm.

A federal magistrate determined that Nix could be released to his mother’s custody while awaiting trial.

In a comment on a Telegram chat last June, reviewed by Raw Story, Cuevas told a fellow white nationalist: “Kai Nix is your enemy. He’s snitching on the whole of Patriot Front. // Brotha was facing 70 years and got sent home.”

Last September, Nix pleaded guilty to knowingly possessing and selling a stolen firearm. He is scheduled for sentencing next month. During his plea hearing, a federal prosecutor told the court Nix communicated with a confidential human source about stolen firearms in December 2023. The FBI then set up a controlled buy, and ascertained that Nix sold to the confidential human source a pistol stolen from a retired sheriff’s deputy.

Patrick could not be reached for comment.

More names

The affidavit supporting charges against Cuevas and Nary includes the names of two other men with documented histories of white supremacist activity.

The government alleges Cuevas told the FBI undercover employee last month that the guns would be used by himself, Nary and Logan Gulbranson.

Earlier this month, according to the government, Cuevas delivered $500 to the undercover employee, then later took possession of two weapons intended for Gulbranson.

As a 16-year-old, in January 2023, Gulbranson unfurled a swastika flag and yelled racial slurs outside a drag show in Cookeville, Tenn. Later that year, he was part of a group of neo-Nazis who escorted Gabrielle Hanson, a mayoral candidate in Franklin, Tenn. to a candidate forum.

It is not clear whether Gulbranson, now 19, is set to face weapons trafficking charges with Cuevas and Nary. He could not be reached for comment.

The affidavit also states that Cuevas and a fourth man, Aidan Stamper, met with the FBI undercover employee in Alabama last July, and asked for paramilitary training. During the meeting, according to the affidavit, Stamper told the undercover employee he had bought an AR-15 off the street and converted it to a fully automatic firearm.

It is unclear whether Stamper could face charges. He could not be reached for comment.

Stamper was reportedly arrested in May 2024 for allegedly spray-painting racist and antisemitic slurs and neo-Nazi symbols on homes in Sylvan Park, in Nashville, Tenn. a year earlier.

Since Stamper was a juvenile at the time of the alleged vandalism, he was not named when Nashville Metro Police announced charges of criminal conspiracy, trespassing, civil rights intimidation and theft. Scoop Nashville identified him, using local jail records.

Cuevas, Gulbranson and Stamper were all arrested in January 2025, shortly after their network was infiltrated by the FBI, for breaking into an industrial park in north-east Mississippi that houses a nuclear power plant. The three men were charged with felony trespassing and burglary.

‘Bond, train, and fight for our race’

The three men were also core members of a neo-Nazi group called the North ’Bama Brigade. The group’s Telegram channel promoted grievances against immigrants and unhoused people, while showing images depicting LGBTQ+ and Israeli flags being trampled.

North ’Bama Brigade has held joint gatherings with Southern Sons, a neo-Nazi group whose members were hit with felony conspiracy charges last week, for allegedly carrying out hate crimes targeting Jews and LGBTQ+ people.

According to messages cross-posted by the two groups on Telegram, Southern Sons hosted North ’Bama Brigade in Atlanta in June 2024, providing an “opportunity to bond, train, and fight for our race.” The two groups reconvened two months later for “an extensive wilderness trip into Tennessee for the purpose of bonding, training and swimming activities.”

The day after Cuevas and Nary’s arrest in Alabama, David William Fair, the leader of Southern Sons, and a second member, Martin Harvey, were arrested in South Carolina.

On the same day, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police arrested five Southern Sons members in North Carolina, while Ryan Gower, a Southern Sons member who participated in the North ’Bama Brigade’s Telegram chat, was arrested in Florida.

It is unclear if the federal case in Alabama and the state case in North Carolina are linked.

‘The white man’s coming back’: Eight held over links to resurgent violent skinhead group

Eight men linked to a violent racist skinhead group are in jail in the U.S. South on felony conspiracy charges or awaiting extradition for hate crimes against Jewish and LGBTQ+ targets, Raw Story has learned.

Five North Carolina men, ranging in age from 18 to 22 and described in court filings as “supporters of the Vinlanders Social Club/Firm 22 and members of the Southern Sons, all known white supremacist/nazi groups,” were arrested on Jan. 21 and booked into the Mecklenburg County Detention Center in Charlotte, N.C.

Court documents suggest charges may follow for three others detained outside North Carolina.

Founded in 2003, Vinlanders Social Club earned a reputation as one of the most violent racist skinhead groups in the U.S., linked to at least four murders. It declined in the early 2010s but extremism researchers were alarmed last fall when the group began to show signs of resurgence.

Southern Sons emerged in late 2021 as a neo-Nazi group seeking to recruit members in the Carolinas and Georgia. The group was co-founded by David William Fair, who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 as a juvenile, alongside his mother. Previously known as Southern Sons Active Club, Fair’s group has worked with other far-right groups including Patriot Front and Aryan Freedom Network.

Now, Southern Sons has become increasingly aligned with Vinlanders Social Club. A review of Southern Sons’s Telegram channel indicates the group has been largely absorbed.

For example, a message posted by Vinlanders and forwarded by Southern Sons last May shows 11 men with Vinlanders and swastika flags giving Hitler salutes outside a Confederate memorabilia shop in South Carolina. The caption reads: “Vinlanders Social Club Supporters and Probates Firm 22-Southern Sons at Dixie Fest 2025.”

A propaganda video posted last September on the Southern Sons channel, highlighting the murder in August of Iryna Zarutska by a mentally disturbed man on the Charlotte light rail, directs prospective members to the Vinlanders website.

Southern Sons members and Vinland Social Club probates at the Dixie Republic store in South Carolina in May 2025, including Ryan Gower (standing, second from left), Tristan Somerson (standing, center), Martin Harvey (standing, fourth from right), David Fair (kneeling, right) and Joseph Webb (second from right). Flag altered with superimposed smiley face.Facebook

‘The point is desecration’

Fair was booked in jail in Columbia, S.C. on the same day this month that the five North Carolina men were arrested in Charlotte. The jail record indicated that as of Sunday, Fair was being held on a $2,500 bond for breach of peace.

The sprawling investigation into a hate-crime spree allegedly committed by the Southern Sons members — with 27 charges against five defendants ranging from felony conspiracy and soliciting gang activity to disturbing a casket/grave marker — started in October.

Then, three members showed up at a peaceful Pro-Palestine protest in Charlotte. Charges filed last fall indicate that David Pagava, a 19-year-old student at UNC-Charlotte; Ethan Purcell, 18; and an unnamed juvenile were armed with knives and brass knuckles at a “Rise Up For Gaza” protest at First Ward Park in Charlotte on Oct. 4. The police seized phones from the three as evidence.

A detective with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s Criminal Intelligence Unit obtained a search warrant to review the phones, according to court documents, and discovered footage showing members desecrated a Jewish veteran’s grave at a cemetery in Huntersville, N.C., then traveled to a church in Charlotte, stole an LGBTQ+ pride flag, and burned it at the home of one of the members’ parents on Sept. 13.

Video allegedly shot by Alexander Hare, 21, shows Pagava squatting beside a grave decorated with the star of David and the U.S. Army logo, stating: “Jew right here. Now, I’m not a fan of Jews, so …”

Then, according to the affidavit, Pagava kicked “flags and other decorative/spiritual items” on the grave, and yelled, “White f---ing power!” while giving a Nazi salute.

Later, Pagava, described as a “member leader” of Southern Sons, traveled in a truck owned by Joseph Keaton Webb, 22, with Purcell and the juvenile, to Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Charlotte, according to the affidavit.

“Don’t f--- up, don’t get cold feet, don’t [unintelligible], okay?” Pagava said, according to the affidavit. “Tear that s--- down, okay? The point is desecration. Stealing it … may be a sign of it. Alright get ready. Go go go!”

The video then shows Purcell and the juvenile running behind the church and returning to the truck with the pride flag.

According to the affidavit, members of the hate group burned the flag later. The videos also show a book burning said to have taken place on Sept. 14. A compilation video posted on the Southern Sons Telegram channel shows a man — alleged in court documents to be Tristan Somerson, a 19-year-old student at Mount Mitchell Community College — wearing a Vinlanders probate patch and holding up The Straight Man, a novel by Richard Russo.

“What he doesn’t realize is the white man’s coming back, and we’re going to kill every last single n-----,” Somerson allegedly says, before throwing the book into the fire. “White power.”

L-R: Ethan Purcell, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Detention Center, Alexander Hare and Joseph Webb

The investigation by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police identified Fair, the Southern Sons co-founder, along with Martin Blaine Harvey, 22, and Ryan Anthony Gower, 21, as “additional gang members.”

An affidavit filed in support of criminal charges against Somerson alleges that Harvey “gave a hate speech towards the LGBTQ community and Jewish people” before Somerson and Purcell burned the stolen pride flag.

Harvey was booked into the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center in Columbia, S.C. on Jan. 21, and was being held as of Sunday on a criminal conspiracy charge.

Gower, 21, of Bradenton, Fla., was arrested on Jan. 21, and also faces a felony conspiracy charge in North Carolina. Gower signed an extradition order on Jan. 22 agreeing to be transported to North Carolina.

and is subject to extradition on an out-of-state warrant, according to Manatee County court records.

The felony conspiracy charges allege that Pagava, Somerson, Purcell, Webb, Fair, Harvey, Hare, Gower and the juvenile conspired in various combinations to desecrate the Jewish veteran’s grave, steal the pride flag, and burn it “in furtherance of the gang’s mission and ideology.”

An email to Southern Sons requesting comment for this story went unreturned.

Somerson, Pagava, Purcell, Hare and Webb were released on bond, despite an attestation by the police detective that at least four planned “organized criminal activities in the furtherance of the gang’s motives” and are “willing to use violence to advance the group’s objectives.”

Magistrate Robert Gardner added a finding of fact to Somerson’s release order that the defendant holds a “high likelihood of involvement in ongoing violence and organized crime across state lines.”

Of Pagava, Garder noted that he has “pending weapons-related charges” and is subject to “allegations of ongoing violent activity and organized crime.”

Murder and racial intimidation

The Southern Sons’ drift from the active club network — a global white nationalist formation that generally avoids overt neo-Nazi symbolism — to Vinlanders tracks an apparent escalation in violence.

The pinned message on Southern Sons’ Telegram channel still references the group as “Southern Sons Active Club,” and as recently as July 2025, the channel forwarded a message from the Great Plains Active Club, indicating a continued affiliation.

But more than half of the posts last year were forwarded messages from Vinlanders, showing how the groups have meshed.

For the active club network in the U.S., the Southern Sons arrests appear to be an “escalation,” Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told Raw Story, adding that “there have been arrests abroad of AC members for terrorism.”

Last August, a 24-year-old Dutch man who was a member of Guezenbond — described by the investigative news outlet Bellingcat as “a Dutch affiliate of the white supremacist Active Club movement — was arrested in the Netherlands and accused of planning a terrorist attack and possessing illegal firearms.

“When it comes to the Vinlanders, of which Firm 22 is their feeder group, that’s a different matter,” Beirich said. “That group has always openly praised violence and has been around for years.”

Beirich added that active clubs typically allow members to join other groups, a position confirmed by Fair in a January 2022 interview with a white nationalist podcaster.

While active club ideology is typically cloaked behind an emphasis on fitness and brotherhood — for young, white men — there is no such ambiguity in the Vinlanders’ well-documented history of racial violence.

In 2007, three Vinlanders brutally beat a Black man in Indianapolis in broad daylight while threatening horrified onlookers with violence if they called 911, according to a profile by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

One assailant, Eric Fairburn, later confessed to the 2004 murder of a man allegedly responsible for the drunken-driving death of one of his friends.

In 2009, a Pennsylvania prison guard who was secretly a probate member of Vinlanders reportedly murdered his girlfriend and their 18-month-old child.

The same year, a Vinlanders probate named Travis Ricci yelled racial slurs at a Black man walking with a white woman in a park in Phoenix. Ricci returned in a car driven by another neo-Nazi and fired two shotgun blasts, killing the woman, a 40-year-old mother of two. Ricci was sentenced to life in prison in 2019.

Fair has long expressed admiration for racist skinhead culture, demonstrating comfort with violence and racism and a tolerance for risk.

“Honestly, at the current state of our scene it almost takes a criminal mind to keep going sometimes,” Fair said on the 2022 podcast, when he was 17. “I don’t say ‘criminal mind’ to say we are dangerous lads. But it takes a certain mindset — an ability to be ready to do anything.”

This story has been updated to reflect that Ryan Gower faces a felony conspiracy charge in North Carolina, and signed a waiver of extradition following his arrest in Florida.

Trump's FBI sent a financial crimes expert into a Minneapolis ICE storm. It didn't go well

Federal agents fired teargas canisters and flash-bangs at protesters, who responded by throwing fireworks, filming and jeering. It happened in a north-side Minneapolis neighborhood on the night of Jan. 14, following the second shooting by ICE officer in a week, after the killing of Renee Nicole Good.

The Department of Homeland Security claimed an ICE officer fired in self-defense, striking Julio Cesar Sola-Celis, a Venezuelan immigrant, in the leg.

But Sola-Celis’s mother told the Washington Post her son was shot while opening the door for a housemate fleeing ICE. Bystander video reviewed by the Minnesota Reformer revealed at least one child inside the house as agents repeatedly shot into it, breaking a second-floor window.

Following the detentions of Sola-Celis and two other men, as protesters confronted federal agents, FBI agents and officers with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension arrived to investigate the incident, according to the Reformer.

According to video posted by independent journalist Andrew Mercado and others, the federal agents hastily withdrew, using armored personnel carriers. They left behind at least two vehicles that were heavily damaged by protesters. Among other items, protesters recovered an operational plan, challenge coins, a laptop, and an official photo ID for an FBI special agent.

Mercado’s livestream shows an image of the ID for FBI Special Agent Elijah Steimle, saved on a cellphone held by an unidentified woman, who told Mercado she found the ID in the car. Also recovered from the vehicle was a receipt showing Steimle stayed at a hotel in Baldwin, Wis., about 50 miles outside Minneapolis, on Jan. 7, the day of the death of Renee Good, and the day after.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

‘Complex financial crimes’

The misplaced ID, recovered during the chaotic aftermath of the Sola-Celis shooting, opens a window onto an extraordinary shift of federal resources.

FBI Director Kash Patel has mandated that agents augment typical duties by supporting the massive immigration crackdown ordered by President Donald Trump in Minneapolis and other cities. Special agents have been pulled away from counterterrorism, counter-intelligence, cybercrime and financial crimes investigations, to help ICE detain people sought for immigration violations.

Steimle is one of the FBI special agents with specialized skills nonetheless assigned to assist with Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis.

Federal court records reveal that Steimle is trained to investigate “complex financial crimes.” For example, his name appears on an affidavit filed in federal court in support of a criminal complaint for conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

That investigation resulted in the conviction of Sebastian Chelemen, a 38-year-old Canadian national who defrauded elderly people by tricking them into believing younger family members had been arrested and needed cash to make bond. In 2024, Chelemen was sentenced to 50 months in prison, and ordered to pay $460,350 in restitution.

“Elder fraud is a massive and growing problem that affects one of our most vulnerable age groups,” Jermaine Deans, acting special agent in charge for the FBI Springfield office in Illinois, said at the time.

“It accounts for billions of dollars in losses and in many instances leaves victims financially and emotionally devastated. This sentence demonstrates the commitment of the FBI and our law enforcement partners to relentlessly pursue and hold accountable those who seek to harm the elderly.”

At the time of Chelemen’s arrest, Steimle was assigned to the FBI’s Springfield office. It is unclear whether Steimle is still assigned to that office. The hotel receipt discovered in Minneapolis listed an address in Manitowoc, Wis.

Attempts to contact Steimle for comment were unsuccessful.

In an email to Raw Story, the FBI said it “does not comment on or confirm personnel information.”

Prior to joining the FBI, Steimle was a regional president for Bank First in the Manitowoc area and was working for an MBA in finance at Marquette University, as reported in a 2021 local news item.

He earned a masters in accountancy from UW-Madison and passed his CPA exam, according to a 2020 Facebook post by the Young Professionals of Manitowoc County reflecting his recognition by the local chamber of commerce as one of the county’s top 15 young professionals.

Regarding Steimle’s work for the FBI in Minneapolis, some social media users commenting on images of his ID and receipt were scathing.

“Now he’s a slave catcher… interesting career shift,” one wrote.

“History will remember,” wrote another.

‘Delaying justice’

Kayla Staph, a former FBI special agent who specialized in cyber and counterterrorism investigations before leaving the agency in September, told NPR on Tuesday the mandate to shift to immigration enforcement was a “culture shock” to many agents.

“We are subject matter experts in counterterrorism and counter-intelligence, things like cyber,” Staph said.

Now, she added, such agents are “Shifting to an area where we have no frame of reference for it, we’re not trained in the law, we’re not trained in the tactics.

“We have a set of tactics in how we do arrest operations or search warrant operation, and we are not familiar with how ICE, or [Enforcement and Removal Operations], which is under ICE, do their things.”

Initially, Staph said, agents were only asked to participate in “coordinated takedowns to arrest the worst of the worst,” but increasingly almost everyone at the agency is being told to volunteer for “rotations” to assist with routine detentions.

“It’s impossible to do the work we were doing and be in another place,” Staph said. “Can’t be in two places at once … If less time is spent on our cases — writing our search warrants, opening cases, bringing forward indictments — those cases lag, and that is bad for justice. We are delaying justice.”

The FBI told Raw Story the agency “has been committed to supporting our partners in immigration enforcement and will remain so.

“All our work is focused on providing safer communities for our citizens every day,” a statement said. “The FBI does not comment on specific operational adjustments or personnel. However, we continuously assess and realign our resources to respond to the most pressing threats to our national security and to ensure the safety of the American people.”

Mary McCord, a former acting assistant attorney general of national security at the Department of Justice, told NPR diverting FBI resources was harming public safety and national security.

“This has a bigger impact than just any individual case, because there’s a signaling function here — to nation-states who want to use cyber functions to harm us in the realm of national security that we’re not putting the resources into that right now,” McCord said.

“To cyber criminals that want to steal money through various online schemes — we’re not paying attention to that anymore. And the more you divert FBI resources into this administration’s chosen causes … these major diversions mean something is not being investigated. And that can harm national security and public safety.”

‘Somebody’s going to get hurt,' lawyer warns as Trump ‘secretary of retribution’ runs amok

In a video posted to his X account in late December, Ivan Raiklin is seen walking behind a senior federal prosecutor outside the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C. Peppering her with questions, the former Army Green Beret turned lawyer and self-styled Trump “secretary of retribution” accuses the official of “covering up for the fed-surrection.”

Since Donald Trump’s defeat in 2020, Raiklin has become known for extreme rhetoric in support of Trump’s lie that the election was stolen, including promoting a “Deep State Target List” and calling for “live-streamed swatting raids” against Trump’s enemies.

Raiklin’s social media posts and podcasts typically carry an undercurrent of menace and often indirectly call for violence by accusing opponents of treason, implying they deserve death.

Followers often call for individuals to be punished by hanging, firing squad, or, in one case, “lynch mobs.”

Raiklin’s December target was Jocelyn Ballantine, deputy chief of the Department of Justice’s National Security Section, a target of right-wing conspiracy theorists due to her prosecutions of Proud Boys leaders for attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor.

Now, Ballantine’s role as a lead prosecutor in the case of accused Jan. 6 pipe-bomber Brian Cole Jr. puts her in Raiklin’s sights.

Cole reportedly told the FBI he believes Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. Many Trump supporters therefore consider Cole a “patsy” and the prosecution part of a conspiracy to discredit Trump and his supporters.

On Jan. 9, Raiklin posted another video, of a second man stalking Ballantine as she left Cole’s arraignment.

“My recommendation is to not work for the Deep State, okay?” the man says. “You failed to take down Flynn, [Proud Boys leader] Enrique Tarrio and others. Just resign now. Quit. God’s watching us all. We’re gonna reap what we sow, Joceylyn. We can’t get away with anything. We’re answering to Jesus soon, Jocelyn.”

As with the incident on Dec. 30, no security detail is visible.

Accusing Raiklin of “stalking an assistant U.S. attorney who he disagrees with,” Kevin Carroll, a D.C. national security lawyer representing another Raiklin target, told Raw Story: “The guy’s dangerous. He’s clearly mentally deranged.

“It’s a circumstance in which at any time before Jan. 20, 2025 [Trump’s second inauguration day] the Marshals Service would do something about it.

“It’s shocking. Here, they’re allowing this guy, Raiklin, a member of the bar, to threaten a female AUSA [assistant US attorney]. I have no doubt what would happen in other circumstances. If I as a lawyer or a client of mine as a party was following an AUSA down the street, there’d have been a hearing before the judge, and there would be bar discipline for me as a lawyer.”

"We take threats against our prosecutors extremely seriously and have robust threat assessment and security protocol," a Department of Justice spokesperson told Raw Story. "For the safety of any protected parties, we do not discuss specifics concerning any protective details."

Brady McCarron, the spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals Service told Raw Story that "for the safety and security of all, we do not discuss any security measures on court personnel.

"We do take all threats seriously and investigate them properly," he said.

‘Far out of the bounds’

Carroll represents Dr. Terry Adirim, a physician formerly involved in the Biden Department of Defense’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for service members, in a lawsuit against the CIA and Raiklin, across the Potomac River in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Adirim was fired as director of the CIA’s Center for Global Health Services last April, roughly four months after Raiklin tagged CIA Director John Ratcliffe in an X post asking if Adirim was “burrowing in at the CIA.”

Adirim’s lawsuit accuses the CIA of breach of contract and of violating due process and privacy rights, while accusing Raiklin of defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The lawsuit points to Raiklin’s inclusion of Adirim on his “Deep State Target List” of people “he considers guilty of treason,” and a statement on the actor Roseanne Barr’s podcast in October 2024 that Adirim should be convicted of “genocide and mass mutilitation.”

In a filing seeking dismissal, Raiklin’s lawyer argued the “statements are not actionable in defamation because they are expressions of opinion” and “fail to demonstrate actual malice.”

In a proposed amended complaint filed in October, Carroll says Raiklin has “called for” Adirim “to be forcibly vaccinated, thrown out of a window and hanged as a matter of retribution.”

The filing also says “Raiklin has implied that Dr. Adirim should be shot.”

The filing cites a May 11, 2025 X post, accompanied by a video showing a man firing rounds at a gun range, captioned, “This video … represents the sentiment of the 8,600 thrown out [of the military], 80 thousand that left early [and] 3.5 million that were duped by the @TerryAdirimMD unlawful DOD jab mandate implementation memo.”

Another post reads, “Mass defenestration of those involved in the unlawful jab mandate is the only path forward.”

A Raiklin follower replied with a GIF showing a man thrown out of a window.

Raiklin also shared video of Alex Jones, the right-wing provocateur found liable for claiming the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre was a hoax, saying, “We know the penalty for this is open and shut. And they need to get fair trials. And then they need to be hung in public.”

Raiklin responded: “Legally, Morally, Ethically! To the Max!”

Screengrab from Ivan Raiklin's X account with his response to Alex Jones calling for public hangings for individuals found guilty of treason.

Adirim has made the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia and the Marshals Service aware of the threats but no action has been taken, according to the filing.

The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.

Neither Raiklin nor John David McGavin, his lawyer, could be reached for comment.

“Raiklin continues to threaten my client with death,” Caroll told Raw Story. “The DOJ and the Marshals Service does nothing about it. It’s far out of the bounds of acceptable conduct.”

In his 24 years practicing law, Carroll said, he has never seen a similar situation.

“The only explanation I can think of is the Department of Justice perceives they receive some litigation advantage by their codefendant threatening to kill my client. It’s reprehensible for the Department of Justice and the Marshals Service to be acting this way.

“Somebody’s going to get hurt.”

This story was updated on Jan. 14, 2026 at 9:27 a.m. ET to include a statement from the U.S. Marshals Service, and updated on Jan. 15, 2026 at 8:44 a.m. to include a statement from the Department of Justice.

Federal official backs Trump 'secretary of retribution' in harassment of key J6 prosecutor

A federal official assigned to the Trump administration’s Interagency Weaponization Working Group, tasked with delivering “accountability” for alleged “misconduct” under Joe Biden, operates a pseudonymous X account that has advanced conspiracy theories including characterizing the Jan. 6 attempted pipe bombing as “an orchestrated inside job” and sharing a video in which a pro-Trump activist who has advocated violence harasses a lead prosecutor, accusing her of “covering up for the fed-surrection.”

Carolyn Rocco, a former Air Force official at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), was identified by Reuters as a member of the Interagency Weaponization Working Group, or IWWG.

Raw Story can reveal that Rocco last month used the X account @Krow121812 to tag Attorney General Pam Bondi in a post sharing an interview with former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio.

The interview shows Tarrio, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy in relation to the January 6, 2021 attack on Congress before receiving a full pardon from President Donald Trump, discussing an apparent effort by Jocelyn Ballantine, a senior prosecutor at the Department of Justice, to pressure him into implicating Trump in the criminal conspiracy to disrupt certification of the electoral vote in the 2020 presidential election.

The New York Times has reported that federal prosecutors approached Tarrio and offered leniency if he confirmed he communicated with Trump through intermediaries in the run-up to Jan. 6.

“Hey @AGPamBondi,” the post by @Krow121812 reads. “You may want to spend a little less time on Fox News and a little bit more time cleaning up your own house.”

The @Krow121812 account also reshared a video of Ivan Raiklin, a far-right provocateur who describes himself as Trump’s “secretary of retribution,” stalking Ballantine outside the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C. in late December, accusing her of “covering up the fed-surrection.”

Rocco hasn’t tried to hide her identity: Last September, @Krow121812 thanked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for reinstating military service members who refused COVID-19 vaccination. The post was signed, “Lt. Col. Carolyn Rocco.”

Likewise, Rocco confirmed her position at the ODNI in September by posting a reply expressing appreciation to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard for leading staff as they took oaths. Gabbard thanked Rocco for joining the office.

Ballantine, deputy chief of the DOJ National Security Section, has increasingly become a target for Trump supporters, for her role overseeing the Proud Boys prosecution, which yielded the convictions of the leadership cadre of the neo-fascist street gang, and for prosecuting Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor.

Cara Castronuova, a former Proud Boys associate now White House correspondent for LindellTV, asked Trump about Ballantine at the White House last month, about how he felt about her being assigned to prosecute the Jan. 6 pipe bomber case.

“Jocelyn is being looked at,” Trump replied. “They all have to be looked at. What they’re doing is so bad.”

'Drive for retribution'

Following a Reuters report in October, DNI Gabbard belatedly confirmed that she launched the IWWG last April.

Reuters revealed the involvement of at least 39 people representing the ODNI, White House, CIA, Department of Justice, Department of War, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies.

The effort is meant to “help … steer” Trump’s “drive for retribution against his perceived enemies.”

ODNI has maintained that the IWWG is not “targeting any individual person.”

ODNI spokesperson Olivia C. Coleman told Raw Story: “IWWG is simply looking at available facts and evidence that may point to actions, reports, agencies, individuals, etc, who illegally weaponized the government in order to carry out political attacks.”

Coleman said the IWWG was not seeking Ballantine's removal.

Rocco could not be reached for comment.

Last February, prior to the launch of the IWWG, Bondi announced a DOJ Weaponization Working Group, tasking it with “the pursuit of improper investigative tactics and unethical prosecutions relating to the events at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 — as distinct from good-faith actions by federal employees simply following orders from superiors.”

Edward R. Martin Jr., a prominent rightwing activist, was named by Trump to lead the DOJ group, after his nomination for U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia failed to win Senate approval. Martin also heads the DOJ office for pardon requests.

Jared Wise, a former FBI agent who was in the middle of a trial for assaulting law enforcement and other charges related to Jan. 6 when he received a Trump pardon, is also among DOJ officials in the IWWG, according to Reuters.

Watching other rioters at the Capitol push against a police line, Wise reportedly yelled: “Kill ’em! Kill ’em!”

‘The fate of your position’

Raiklin has called for “live-streamed swatting raids” against individuals on a “Deep State Target List” and elicited direct calls for violence. On Dec. 30, he posted to X a video of himself tailing Ballantine and shouting questions.

“Do you find it surprising that you still have a job at the Department of Justice?” Raiklin shouted.

“Do you think you survived because Ed Martin ended up going to the Department of Justice Main, as opposed to being the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia?

“Do you have any involvement in that?”

Raiklin suggested Ballantine intervened to derail the Senate vote to approve Martin’s nomination, so Martin would not be able “to expose [her] involvement in covering up for the fed-surrection.”

“I’d be very shocked to hear that you’re going to continue to work at the Department of Justice after this goes and posts,” Raiklin said. “So, I guess all I can say is belated Merry Christmas, happy holidays, Happy New Year, and we’ll see about the fate of your position at the Department of Justice.”

The @Krow121812 account linked to Rocco reposted a post by YouTuber David Freiheit, sharing Raiklin’s post.

Raw Story asked the DOJ for comment from Martin on whether he is seeking Ballantine’s dismissal, and from Bondi on whether she is considering such a move. The request went unreturned.

Ballantine is leading the prosecution of the alleged Jan. 6 pipe bomber, apprehended last month. Bondi and FBI leaders have cast the failure to make an arrest before Trump’s return to office as a blight on the Biden administration.

“Today’s arrest happened because the Trump administration has made this case a priority,” Bondi said in early December, announcing the arrest of Brian Cole Jr.

“The total lack of movement on this case in our nation’s Capitol undermined the public trust of our enforcement agencies.”

However, the case has alienated some Trump supporters, thanks to the suspect’s statement that he believed Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. In essence, the pro-Trump narrative holds that the pipe bomb plot was a key component of a conspiracy by the FBI and Democrats to orchestrate the Jan. 6 riot, to make Trump and his supporters look bad, thereby derailing attempts to block certification of election results.

Rocco is among those who have expressed scorn towards the DOJ and FBI for the handling of the case.

Responding to an appearance by then-FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino on Fox News, @Krow121812 posted: “This is a big fat slap in the face.

“I really can’t believe after the years we’ve been through that so many people can’t see this for what it is. You’re a disappointment @dbongino. Looks like discernment should be top of people’s Christmas wish list because y’all don’t have it. Disgraceful.”

'Riddle me this, Batman'

Raiklin and Rocco have worked together since at least early 2024. They were among signatories to a Declaration of Military Accountability issued in January 2024, pledging to “seek appointments to executive branch offices” and court-martial Biden-era leaders who implemented COVID-19 mandates.

That month, Raiklin and Rocco appeared on a podcast hosted by Joe Oltmann, a prominent election denier held in contempt of court for refusing to cooperate in a defamation lawsuit related to his baseless claim that Dominion Voting Systems colluded with “antifa organizers” to throw the 2020 election to Biden.

At least one official targeted by Raiklin and Rocco has been shown the door.

Appearing on Roseanne Barr’s podcast in October 2024, Raiklin took aim at Dr. Terry Adirim, principal advisor for health protection policies to Biden's Defense Secretary, Lloyd Austin. Adirim recommended that all military service members receive COVID vaccines. Raiklin accused her of “genocide and mass mutilation.”

On Dec. 16 2024, Adirim started a new job, leading the CIA’s Center for Global Health Services.

Six days later, the @Krow121812 account posted: “Riddle me this, Batman. How does a person — Terry Adirim — who was responsible for the mass confusion and deception imposed on service members, resulting in 8,700 unlawfully forced out and another 90,000 disenfranchised, get selected to fill a [senior executive service] position in our [United States Government]?”

Tulsi Gabbard and John Ratcliffe CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testify in the Senate. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Raiklin shared the post, tagging CIA Director John Ratcliffe and adding: “Is the architect of the illegal DOD CCP-19 Jab Genocide Mandate Terry Adirim burrowing in at the CIA?”

The post appears to have been taken down, but an archived copy of Raiklin’s post was an exhibit in a federal lawsuit filed by Adirim. At the time of publication, the original post by @Krow121812 was still available.

A post on Rocco's LinkedIn page included the same wording as the X thread. The LinkedIn post and X thread included identical screengrabs of Adirim’s LinkedIn post announcing a new position “as senior executive at US Federal Government” and a photocopy of a Defense Department memorandum signed by Adirim.

Adirim was fired last April. She filed a lawsuit against the CIA and Ratcliffe, alleging breach of contract and violation of due process and privacy rights. The lawsuit accuses Raiklin of defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Adirim is seeking permission from a federal judge to add Rocco, Gabbard, ODNI and the IWWG as defendants.

The proposed amended complaint, filed in federal court on Oct. 24, accuses the CIA of leaking Adirim’s firing to the right-wing Breitbart News, “at the behest of” Rocco and the IWWG.

Coleman, the ODNI spokesperson, told Raw Story neither Rocco nor the IWWG had any involvement in Adirim’s firing or leaking her information.

NC J6er pardoned by Trump is just latest rioter to face sexual assault charges

Two months after David Paul Daniel helped lead the mob into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the North Carolina man met police investigators in the Charlotte suburb of Mint Hill, to answer questions about allegations he sexually assaulted a girl and took photographs of her naked, over a span of four years.

Daniel denied inappropriate conduct but police seized his cellphone as evidence. Armed with a search warrant signed by a North Carolina judge, police turned the phone over to the federal Homeland Security Investigations office in Charlotte, for review.

But it was only after FBI agents and Mint Hill police officers arrested Daniels at his home on Jan. 6 charges, in November 2023, that Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) opened the phone and reviewed its contents.

In the meantime, a second minor victim accused Daniel of statutory rape, 80 miles north in the Winston-Salem area, prompting the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office to open its own investigation. Now, Daniel faces federal charges related to the production, possession and receipt of child pornography and sexual exploitation of a minor.

HSI's role in delaying that state investigation is being reported for the first time by Raw Story.

‘Evidence is compelling’

Daniel is one of around a half-dozen individuals involved in the Jan. 6 attack and pardoned by President Donald Trump who have faced sex charges, including child exploitation and rape.

  • John Emanuel Banuelos, who fired a gun into the air during the Capitol attack, was arrested in Chicago in October 2025 on a warrant from Salt Lake County, Utah, on charges of aggravated kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault. The charges arose when authorities obtained DNA test results linking Banuelos to a 2018 sexual assault, in which he allegedly invited a woman back to his house, punched her in the head and forcibly removed her clothes, according to CBS News.
  • Andrew Paul Johnson, who pleaded guilty to violent entry and disorderly conduct inside the Capitol, was charged in Florida with molesting a child as young as 11 years old, and allegedly tried to buy his victim’s silence by promising a portion of reparations he claimed were due to him for his Jan. 6 prosecution, according to The Intercept. Trump said last March there was “talk” about compensating Jan. 6 defendants, but nothing has come of the idea.
  • Dillon Herrington, an Army veteran, was indicted on a first-degree rape charge in Alabama in 2023, shortly after pleading guilty to assaulting federal law enforcement after hurling a 4x4 piece of lumber at police officers at the Capitol. Sentenced to 37 months in prison, Herrington was set free by Trump but is currently being held without bond in the Limestone County Jail.
  • Theodore Middendorf, who pleaded guilty to destruction of government property for his role in the Jan. 6 attack, is serving a 19-year prison sentence at Danville Correctional Center in Illinois for predatory criminal sexual assault of a victim less than 13 years old, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections website.

Other J6-ers have completed prison time for child sex offenses.

  • Andrew Taake was serving a federal prison sentence in Colorado for attacking police with bear spray and a metal whip at the Capitol, when he received a pardon from President Trump. Prosecutors in Harris County, Texas were at the time seeking Taake on a 2016 charge of soliciting a minor online, but federal officials refused to hold him. Taake pleaded guilty in September, and received a three-year sentence. The sentence was suspended in recognition that he had served at least that amount of time for his Jan. 6 offenses, the Houston Chronicle reported.
  • Andrew Kyle Grigsby, who was accused of using bear spray against officers at the Capitol, was serving time in Kentucky prison for possession of child sexual abuse material when he received his pardon from President Trump.
  • Sean McHugh, a California man who used a bullhorn to accuse officers at the Capitol of “protecting pedophiles” on Jan. 6, had served jail time for statutory rape of a 14-year-old.

Daniel is unique in arguing that he was only charged for sex crimes as a result of the FBI’s massive Jan. 6 investigation.

Prosecutors disagree. Daniel has pleaded not guilty, but a U.S. magistrate judge ordered him detained last September, writing that “the government’s forecast of evidence is compelling and suggests defendant engaged in sexual acts with two young girls in his own family.”

The magistrate noted that Daniel’s ex-wife “appeared in court to request that defendant not be released.”

‘One significant difference’

In other cases, the Trump Department of Justice has dismissed separate charges that arose as a result of the Jan. 6 investigation. They include:

  • Jeremy Brown, a Florida man serving a seven-year sentence for possession of grenades, a modified AR-15 style rifle, sawed off shotgun and classified materials in his home.
  • Daniel Ball, also of Florida, charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
  • Elias Costianes Jr., of Maryland, then serving time for possession of a firearm by an unlawful user of or addict to a controlled substance.

In Daniel's case, his court-appointed lawyer argued in a federal filing in October that the “one significant difference” between those cases and his client’s case is that Daniel’s “involves the politically unsavory charge of child exploitation.”

“Politically, and quite reasonably, the pardon cannot be regarded as encompassing child exploitation,” the filing states.

As Daniel seeks an evidentiary hearing on a motion to dismiss, the DOJ continues to release a millions of documents from the case against the late financier and convicted child trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, in response to an act of Congress.

President Trump has struggled to overcome persistent public scrutiny of his friendship with Epstein, although there is no evidence the president was involved in Epstein’s crimes.

In a footnote to Daniel’s Oct. 27 filing, his lawyer states that his client “is informed and believes” that the decision by the government to go forward with prosecution “is institutional, occurring at an elevated level within the Department of Justice.”

The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of North Carolina told Raw Story the office does “not discuss charging decisions,” adding that such decisions “are made by the U.S. Attorney, often in consultation with others at the Department of Justice.”

Russ Ferguson, a former white collar criminal defense and business litigation attorney, has led the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of North Carolina since his appointment last March. He took the oath of office on Christmas Eve, following Senate confirmation.

Daniel’s lawyer argues in the Oct. 27 filing that “there never would have been a federal prosecution of Mr. Daniel for child exploitation charges unless the pardoned January 6 investigation had prompted the government to obtain the J6 search warrant and search Mr. Daniel’s home.”

During the search, FBI agents seized devices, and after obtaining a warrant to search the devices, uncovered images used as evidence to support the child exploitation charges.

Daniel’s filing goes on to say that “the government was not aware of the abandoned state investigation until it began to pursue the January 6 search warrant.”

But an affidavit in support of the arrest warrant by Chase Bannister, a special agent with the FBI Charlotte Field Office, undercuts the claim that Mint Hill police abandoned their investigation.

Instead, the Mint Hill investigation appears to have languished as a seized iPhone sat at the Homeland Security Investigations office in Charlotte from March 2021 through December 2023 without anyone reviewing its contents.

“During operational coordination leading up to the arrest and search of Daniel, and his residence, investigators were made aware that MHPD had an open investigation regarding the allegation of sexual assault of a minor by Daniel,” the FBI affidavit said.

The victim told Mint Hill police investigators that from 2015 to 2019, Daniel “sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions,” took pictures of her naked, and “had her perform oral sex on him,” according to the affidavit.

Calls to the Mint Hill Police Department for this story went unreturned.

A second girl

While the Mint Hill police investigators waited for Homeland Security Investigations to review the phone, the mother of a second girl reported to the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office that Daniel “had been involved sexually” with the girl in summer 2022.

When interviewed in May 2023, the second girl told investigators “Daniel had committed sexual acts with her on multiple occasions,” according to the affidavit.

“HSI was not able to access the cellphone until Dec. 13, 2023,” the affidavit states.

That shows that officials didn’t look at the phone until almost two weeks after FBI agents executed an arrest warrant at Daniel’s home, and detained him on Jan. 6 charges.

HSI Charlotte could not be reached for comment. Emails to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security went unreturned.

Krista Karcher, the public relations manager for the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office, declined to make Sheriff Bobby Kimbrough available for comment for this story.

The FBI affidavit does not disclose whether the review of the phone seized in 2021 yielded evidence of child sexual abuse material.

But a review of the phone seized from Daniel’s home at the time of his November 2023 arrest on Jan. 6 charges includes photos of the second alleged victim that reveal her graphically posed with the lower portion of her body exposed, according to the FBI.

‘Destined to repeat’: J6 documentary's stark warning as America tries to forget

Five years after Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol amidst a blizzard of lies, with the president and his associates falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen, January 6th may be a story Americans no longer care to hear.

Homegrown, a documentary that tracks three members of the neo-fascist street gang the Proud Boys from the turbulent summer of 2020 to Jan. 6 2021 and the attack on Congress, has won accolades and enthralled streaming viewers in Europe and South America. But the film’s producers have yet to find a U.S. distributor.

“I really think it’s telling around the narrative, around January 6th that it’s been downplayed and diminished within our national conversation,” director Michael Premo told Raw Story.

“That implies we’re only destined to repeat it.”

‘A self-coup’

Premo, a documentary filmmaker who was previously involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement and Hurricane Sandy relief, thinks Americans have trouble coming to grips with January 6th because it runs counter to what most believe about their country.

“I think Trump is such a distillation of everything America pretends it’s not,” he said.

“That is all wrapped up in what January 6th is.

“If this was a country in the Middle East or South America, we’d be talking about a self-coup. That’s not what we’re talking about. That’s not the popular narrative.”

Homegrown has received positive reviews in Europe and South America, and Premo told Raw Story that for a time it was the sixth-most popular streaming movie in New Zealand.

But Americans who want to see Homegrown will have to rent it directly from the film’s website, from Jan. 6 through Feb.16 — the President’s Day holiday.

“We’ve talked to many distributors, and we’ve gotten confounding rejection,” Premo said.

“They’ve said, ‘We love it, but we can’t take it.’ People have been ‘counter-programming-the-apocalypse,’ is what I call it — just light, happy fare.”

Revelatory portraits

For anyone who followed the news closely from protests for racial justice in the summer of 2020 through the presidential election that November and its chaotic fallout, the feverish pace of the storytelling in Homegrown will summon familiar feelings of excitement, dread and anxiety.

But the portraits of the three men profiled in the film, drawn in full humanity, revealing themselves with flashes of violence, self-reflection and regret, will likely come as a revelation to many.

Chris Quaglin is a father-to-be who vandalizes a Black Lives Matter mural.

Chris QuaglinChris Quaglin shows off ammunition for his various guns. Courtesy Storyline Media

Thad Cisneros is a high-ranking Latino leader of the Proud Boys who forges a cross-ideological alliance against police violence.

Randy Ireland is an Air Force veteran who takes on the unglamorous, behind-the-scenes duties of organizing the group.

All are footsoldiers of the Trump movement, destined to sink back into obscurity once they’ve outlived their usefulness.

In one scene, filmed about a week after January 6th, Quaglin is seen fixing up a room for his son, who is about to be born.

“I got him to worry about,” Quaglin says. “And he’s the reason why I did go to DC — because I feel like something had to be done. But I think that all hell’s going to break loose. Sooner than later. If you think DC was bad, just wait. Just wait.”

Quaglin was arrested about two months after his son’s birth, for his involvement in the January 6th attack.

Convicted of 14 charges, including felony counts of assaulting police and obstruction of Congress, like about 1,600 other defendants, he received a pardon from President Trump shortly after Inauguration Day last year.

In another scene, filmed in Portland, Oregon following January 6th, Ireland laments that newer members of the Proud Boys are interested in “Going to streets and hunting, and they found someone that they suspected and chasing them down.

“We don’t do that,” he says.

The next moment, the Proud Boys leader is seen riding in the back of a pickup wearing a helmet and ballistic vest as others fire Airsoft rifles at a group of antifascists in black bloc formation.

‘They’re waiting’

Now Trump has returned to power, rank-and-file conservative activists who hit the streets in 2020 and up to January 6th have largely faded from view.

They’ve been rendered somewhat redundant, Premo said, as Trump has strong-armed media companies “to capitulate” and brought “universities to heel,” thereby neutralizing institutions that would ordinarily check a president’s power.

The reason activists such as Quaglin, Ireland and Cisneros were “ascendant” in 2020, Premo said, “is they were playing this role that the state is now playing now that Trump in his authoritarian trajectory has so effectively consolidated power.”

Randy Ireland Randy Ireland at a rally in support of Jan. 6 defendants in Portland, Oregon in August 2021. Courtesy Storyline Media

Reflecting on the past five years, Premo said he doesn’t see the flare-up of vigilante violence that culminated in January 6th as something to be consigned to the past.

His observation recalls the moment during a 2020 presidential debate when Trump was challenged to condemn white supremacists and right-wing militia groups.

“Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” Trump said.

Premo said: “The role that’s played by the foot-soldier activist is to be proactive.

“When the state is playing the role that you wanted to play, you have to take a back seat.

“They’re waiting for when they’re needed again. Maybe that happens when Trump refuses to leave office after his term is up.”

Copyright © 2026 Raw Story Media, Inc. PO Box 21050, Washington, D.C. 20009 | Masthead | Privacy Policy | Manage Preferences | Debug Logs
For corrections contact corrections@rawstory.com , for support contact support@rawstory.com .