Federal law enforcement’s undercover campaign to surveil Minneapolis protesters included monitoring a makeshift memorial to Alex Pretti, joining a neighborhood rapid response Signal group, and having an undercover agent vote for an activist group to endorse abolishing prisons, new documents filed in federal court today suggest.
The new documents submitted for the court by attorneys for Minneapolis protesters Tuesday appear to show undercover agents trying to suss out whether certain protest groups were likely to engage in violence in the days and weeks after the killings of Pretti and Renee Good, Minnesota residents who were both killed within a few weeks of one another earlier this year while attempting to observe Trump administration immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis.
The undercover agents largely failed in that, the filings suggest. People at the meetings advocated for nonviolent forms of protest; case agents closed an undercover investigation into one socialist group after finding no evidence that they intended violence towards ICE agents.
The records add new details about the mass surveillance of protesters and activists across Minneapolis starting late last year, and include a bizarre array of pictures taken by undercover agents that include people gathering at a Pretti memorial.
Attorney Kevin Riach filed the submission as an exhibit in the Minneapolis protester conspiracy case on Tuesday, where he represents defendant Isaac Sant. In other filings submitted to court earlier this month, Riach argued that the scope of the undercover surveillance operation showed that the prosecution was motivated not by any crime, but by the executive branch’s disagreement with his client’s political beliefs.
The documents Riach submitted from discovery include transcripts of undercover agents’ debriefing sessions, investigation reports, and photos they took documenting surveillance of activists who were later charged in the case that locals have come to call the “Minneapolis 15.” In addition to photos of the Pretti memorial, agents also took pictures of what appears to be a poster of Vice President JD Vance in glittery eye makeup.
They also photographed a table with a spread of socialist-themed literature on it, the documents show.
“HSI does not comment on the existence or status of specific on-going investigations, nor on investigative methods,” a DHS spokesperson told TPM, referring TPM to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota, which did not immediately return a request for comment.
In some of the debriefing transcripts, undercover federal agents described their experience participating in what appears to be meetings and planning sessions with activist groups in the area.
One transcript, apparently made via a rough machine transcription, shows an HSI Special Agent debriefing an undercover agent identified as “UCA 142.” The underlying audio is not available. The agent appears to have attended a February meeting in Minneapolis involving hundreds of people who had gathered to vote on the policy platform language for their movement.
At one point, the agent recounts “booing” a speaker who suggested that they “should think about instead of abolishing ICE, maybe restructuring it.”
Later, the agent appears to recount a vote that took place on whether to endorse abolishing prisons and various federal agencies.
“I voted for, for the most extreme, obviously I was voting absolutely get rid of the jails,” the transcript reads. “But I think they came to their senses and thought, yeah, we’ll just keep it to abolish ICE and DHS and some of these other things because that seemed to be more favorable or, or or or palatable rather probably to the masses.”
An officer identified as “Special Agent Marquis” asked the undercover agent later whether the group discussed “any like open plans to defeat ICE or have a big protest or anything.”
The investigations proceeded under a “Certified Undercover” operation, a Homeland Security Investigations term for cases in which agents are allowed to go undercover and break certain laws. Agents invoked National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, the White House directive to federal law enforcement to target everyday political opponents, in opening the investigations.
Throughout the transcripts, agents repeatedly asked whether activists and organizers that the undercover agents met with expressed interest in violence. Across the board, the agents said that they found no evidence of threats or intent to commit violence.
In one debriefing, an HSI official identified as “Special Agent Cutbirth” asked an undercover agent whether there was “anything anti-ICE, any threats toward ICE or any ICE operations?”
“No real threats,” the agent replied, per the transcript, adding that the group finished the meeting with a “Fuck ICE” chant before saying: “nothing like we’re going to go harm ICE agents type shit.”
An undercover agent who according to the documents infiltrated a meeting of the Sunrise Movement — a national climate activist group founded in 2017 to advocate for solutions to climate change — described entering a library where “a chick dressed like Zelda” led visitors to different meeting rooms. The agent went to one titled “de-escalation in action.”
“They were pretty big on peaceful protest,” the agent recalled to his debriefer, identified as “Special Agent Marquis.” “And that, you know, there’s other groups that push it further and they’re not one of them.”
Later, the agent said that he attended another breakout session and offered to use his experience as a construction worker to “do things building whatever they need.”
“I go, some of these other groups are doing stuff that’s more direct and even if they’re getting arrested, it’s whatever,” the agent told his debriefer, per the transcription. “I can, I’ll help with whatever. He took my number so we’ll see if he texts me.”
In another document, an undercover agent identified as “UCA 5022” attended a February 9 meeting of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). That report was filed as part of Operation Puppet Master, HSI’s investigation of protests in Minneapolis and their funding.
An after action report described the meeting as relatively unremarkable. An agent said that it was “well structured and political in nature” and that “speakers educated the attendees on what Socialism is and what the world would look like under a Socialist system of government.”
The undercover agent told his superiors that he had joined a “North MPLS Volunteers” Signal group from the meeting to “monitor any future threats against ICE agents.”
After the debriefing, case agents decided to stop attending the PSL meetings, the document says.
“There was no indication that members of the group wanted to use violence towards ICE Agents,” they wrote.
Well, it’s not like they have an actual job to do.
The cluelessness of these DHS goons boggles the mind.