Federal agents with the Department of Homeland Security sent undercover agents to observe a climate group and into churches, and obtained financial records for labor unions, as they sought to crack down on mass protests in Minneapolis following the Trump administration’s surge of federal officers into the city, attorneys alleged in a new filing.
The effort began in earnest four days after federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti. On Jan. 28, Homeland Security Investigations, ICE’s investigative arm, started what it called “Operation Puppet Master,” the filing says. That investigation was targeted at “an organized network of conspirators operating through online and in person who are providing material support to violent opportunists and agitators involved in impeding federal law enforcement, rioting, destruction of Federal property and assaults on Federal agents and Officers.”
The filing was filed by the defense in the broad conspiracy prosecution that the DOJ’s Joint Task Force Vanguard brought against fifteen Minnesota activists in June. Federal prosecutors channeled Trump administration messaging to dub the group “Antifa.” Locals have started to call the group the “Minneapolis 15.”
Defense attorney Kevin Riach wrote in the filing that federal agents had charged the group as part of a broad campaign of “abuses” that targeted ordinary citizens and left-leaning civil society organizations.” The filing cited extensive government materials obtained by the defendants through discovery.
“HSI secretly obtained financial records for several national labor unions, including SEIU and the Communications Workers of America, and social justice non-profits including the Sunrise Movement and Voices for Racial Justice, all with zero criminal predicate to do so,” Riach wrote.
Per the filing, Joint Task Force Vanguard co-chief Brian W. Lynch presented the case to the grand jury. TPM first reported that Lynch was co-running the initiative; TPM later broke the news that he had marched on the Capitol on January 6.
The DOJ has described Vanguard as its effort to operationalize National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, a White House directive to federal law enforcement to treat opposing the Trump administration as indicia of domestic terrorism.
Per the filing, HSI cited NSPM-7 as its authority to open the case.
Read the filing below:
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
This para was mind-blowing. I’m thinking that if not a documentary, certainly a great film. Sad we lost Jonathan Demme so soon.
But breaking and entering, assulting federal agents, theft, defication in the capital, obstruction of justice, preventing the peaceful transfer of power, and attempting to overthrow the government… just a bunch of tourists, celebrating America, and loving their government.
Well, if you ask me, it’s high time the Lutheran Ladies Auxiliary – and their coverdishes! – were body slammed, stripped searched, and frog-marched off to CECOT.
(All this talk of loving neighbors, making peace, and caring for the poor is pure Bolshie agitprop!)
“an organized network of conspirators operating through online and in person who are providing material support to violent opportunists and agitators"
look in the mirror you pieces of s*** at DOJ
Well it’s not "indicia of domestic terrorism but it is “indicia” of anti-democratic tyranny.