When protest becomes ‘TERRORISM’:The Trump admin's escalating war on dissent

[0:00] So as we get closer to the November midterms, the Trump administration is escalating its [0:05] war on dissent. And to do it, it has completely weaponized the U.S. justice system against [0:10] its critics. We're talking about terrorism statutes, criminal conspiracy charges, obstruction [0:16] of justice. Laws that are typically used to prosecute drug cartels and terrorists and [0:22] insurrectionists are now turned against protesters and organizers and left-leaning activists. [0:27] These prosecutions have become a little tiny fig leaf for Donald Trump's authoritarian ambitions. [0:33] If you take away that legal cover, you are left with a dictator wannabe swinging wildly [0:38] at threats to his power. One of the most egregious of these cases comes from Texas. Daniel Dez Sanchez [0:45] Estrada is a 39-year-old artist. He is also a father and a long-time teacher's aide at an elementary [0:51] school. He did not attend the widely covered July 4th protest outside the Prairieland Ice Detention [0:57] Center in Alvarado, Texas, where horrifically, a police officer was shot and wounded. His wife did [1:04] attend, and according to court documents, she was arrested that night. She was charged with rioting [1:09] and material support. But notably, she was not accused of the actual shooting. After her arrest, [1:14] she called Estrada. She asked him to move a few boxes out of their home that contained political [1:20] pamphlets and zines. You know, they're like those small booklets or magazines. For moving them, [1:28] federal prosecutors charged Estrada with concealing evidence, portraying the couple as part of what [1:34] the government called, what was it? A North Texas Antifa cell. A label that, you know, by the way, [1:41] critics say has no recognized legal meaning at all. None. Antifa is a category invented by this [1:47] administration to frame left-wing activists as a domestic terror network. It is not an actual thing, [1:52] nor a group, nor an organization. A jury convicted him anyway. And the court's pre-sentencing report [1:59] recommended 10 to 16 months. But prosecutors sought what is known as a terrorism enhancement [2:06] based on the so-called Antifa affiliation. And this June, a federal judge sentenced him to 30 years. [2:13] His wife got 70 years for providing what they claim is material support to terrorists. [2:21] There were eight people arrested at the Prairieland protests. They were sentenced to a combined 450 years [2:28] on terrorism charges. 450 years. The first sentence is handed down under NSPM 7, that Trump directive. [2:35] You remember this? The one issued last September that treats left-wing dissent as domestic terrorism. [2:41] For comparison, the longest sentence imposed on any January 6th defendant was 22 years. [2:47] That was against Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio on a charge of seditious conspiracy. [2:52] Donald Trump, of course, pardoned him on his very first day in office. [2:58] Counterterrorism experts point out that these sentences targeting protesters exceed [3:02] even those imposed on many convicted ISIS supporters. They warned that this administration [3:08] is distorting terrorism laws to criminalize protected First Amendment activity, things like pamphlets [3:13] and posters and organizing and protest. Essentially, they're looking at left-wing political expression, [3:19] and they're calling it material support for terrorism. Estrada's sister, her name is Annabelle, [3:27] described what the arrest looked like. She said it was a SWAT unit, the FBI, a bomb squad, [3:32] there was a drone overhead, there were officers with AR-15s surrounding her brother's truck [3:37] over what the government said was, it was a wide right turn. It was by design, theater. And you, [3:47] all of us, the American people, are the intended audience. And you do not have to take my word [3:52] for who this show of force is for. Take it from the Texas judge who handed down this extraordinarily [3:58] heavy sentence, Judge Reed O'Connor. He reportedly said the quiet part out loud. This is what he said, [4:05] quote, the state wants to send a message to anyone who shares similar ideology. And addressing the court [4:12] before his sentencing, Estrada pleaded, quote, I worked really hard every day in this country. [4:17] I am a father. I am a husband. I am a teacher. I am a poet. I am many things, [4:22] Your Honor, but I am not a terrorist. I am many things, Your Honor, but I am not a terrorist. [4:29] This is America today. This is where we are. Prairieland might be the most extreme example, [4:35] but it definitely is not the only one. If anything, it shows where all of this machinery is headed if [4:41] it continues unabated. And two stories this week point to just that. The first one is all about a [4:49] special education teacher in Minneapolis, Treasure Thornson. She told NPR that in June, [4:54] she was drinking coffee when federal agents showed up at her door. She recalled one of those agents [5:00] telling her, quote, we have a warrant for your arrest for conspiracy. Conspiracy. That is a federal [5:06] felony. The government charged Thornson and 14 other people with conspiring to impede federal agents [5:11] during whatever it was called, Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis. I was there. I covered it in real time. [5:19] Look closely at what prosecutors cited to justify the charge. Meetings, conversations on signal, [5:26] essentially speech, political organizing. Which brings us to the next story, how the government [5:32] finds this speech in the first place. The Wall Street Journal this week revealed that the scope [5:38] of a DHS surveillance operation aimed not at criminals, but at critics was something you need [5:43] to be paying attention to. Hundreds of subpoenas to social media companies seeking to unmask anonymous [5:49] accounts that are critical of what? Of ICE. Federal agents reportedly approached Americans at their [5:55] jobs and on the road and at home asking them to sign letters acknowledging that their online criticism of [6:02] ICE, quote, may constitute a crime. The program calls for monitoring nearly 20 different platforms [6:10] like Reddit and Discord and Snapchat and LinkedIn and even go to their DMV records. Outside of Philly, [6:17] for example, neighbors ran Facebook and Instagram pages under the Montco Community Watch where they [6:22] posted ICE sightings for some than like 10,000 followers. Homeland Security demanded meta hand over [6:29] the names and emails and identifying details of the people behind them. And who's running the operation [6:36] asking for this information? ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility. It's their internal affairs. [6:43] This is an office created to investigate ICE agents accused of wrongdoing, [6:49] now investigating the critics of ICE. And if that's not bad enough, it doesn't stop there. The FBI is [6:56] also investigating neighborhood signal groups in Minnesota, the rapid response networks that [7:01] residents used to warn each other about ICE activity. Kash Patel, the FBI director, confirmed [7:06] it himself, telling Fox News, quote, the signal chat group is information we collect from the public. [7:13] Remember, you don't have to prosecute every protester. You only have to make the rest of the [7:20] protesters wonder, am I next? Will this signal chat become evidence? What about this Facebook post, [7:26] this flyer? Today, a dad in Texas is serving a 30 year prison sentence for moving political pamphlets. [7:35] Today, a special education teacher in Minneapolis is also facing felony charges normally reserved for [7:42] serious criminals, actual criminals, not protesters. And somewhere in this country today, somebody is [7:49] deciding or second guessing whether to send that text, whether to warn their neighbors that ICE is [7:54] nearby, wondering who else might be reading it. That is not law and order. That is a dictatorship in [8:01] the making, right under our collective noses. This is what many of us might not realize. If you are forced [8:10] to censor yourself, regardless of whether you are actually ever arrested or surveilled, you already have [8:17] fewer rights. The moment fear dictates what you say or what you write or what you choose to rally around, [8:23] you are no longer in a functioning democracy. Which is why the stakes in this upcoming midterm [8:28] elections have never been more important. None of these cases will actually appear on your ballot [8:33] this November. But understand the real question on those ballots. It is whether those in power can [8:39] weaponize the justice system to chill dissent, whether protest remains protected speech, whether [8:45] private conversations can be turned into criminal evidence. I want to leave you with the words of [8:51] Anna Bell, the sister of the man we have been talking about. The man sentenced to 30 years over [8:57] a box of magazines, or as the judge put it, to send a message. After her brother's sentencing, [9:04] she issued a powerful and heartbreaking statement. And I urge anybody who cares about democracy to listen [9:12] very closely to this. The pregnant defendant's sentences are part of an ongoing war on dissent. [9:21] The extreme sentences are a punishment intended to scare and discourage those speaking out against [9:27] systems of oppression. And no, for those who might be thinking it, even after all of this, [9:34] I do not hate this country. Neither does my brother. But two things can be true at the same time. [9:41] We can love our country, and we can oppose fascism and oppression. Joining me now is Reverend Michael Wolfe, [9:52] Senior Minister of Lake Street Church in Evanston, Illinois. Last November, he was thrown to the ground and [9:56] arrested while protesting outside the Broadview ICE facility near Chicago. It's hard to forget these [10:01] images. The charges against him were later dropped. Reverend Wolfe, it's good to see you. Thanks for [10:07] being here. Thanks for having me. I stood outside Broadview too, and I will never forget what the scene [10:14] was outside of that facility. I want to play a clip of your arrest while protesting against ICE. It was [10:20] featured in a documentary called Go Forth Media. This is evil, what's happening here. It's torture. [10:30] What they're doing is torture. You're going to brutalize a priest. Is that what's going to happen? [10:38] I'm a pastor with the American Baptist churches, and I'm exercising my constitutional rights. [10:44] This is wrong. I'm here because there's torture in that facility. It's a concentration camp, [10:50] because my conscience calls me to do it. It was hard to hear, but Reverend, I want to make sure [10:58] everybody heard what you said. You said your conscience called you to that street, [11:01] and you called what's happening there evil. And now this administration is treating dissent [11:07] itself as if it were terrorism. I wonder what you think about when you hear about this crackdown [11:15] intensifying. Well, it's really startling. And one of the things that I have really come to believe [11:23] is that it's the highest form of patriotism, actually, to want to redeem your country and to [11:28] turn it away from what's happening in these facilities. It's the sort of moral stain. It's [11:33] the sort of thing that we just can't get over. It's going to be really hard to move past. And so for [11:38] people who feel their conscience and who feel called to do these sorts of things, who find the courage [11:44] now because it's so much harder to do it, those people are in so many ways the best of us. And yet, [11:50] the best of us in an authoritarian regime are the folks who are going to be targeted, [11:55] who are going to be forced into these situations where they have to make the choices. Exactly what [12:00] you're saying. Am I going to follow my conscience or am I going to be safe? And that's not a choice we [12:04] should have to make in America. For the people that are seeing charges against protesters assuming, [12:09] you know, hey, the government must have something on them. In your case, what did the government claim [12:14] that you did versus what actually happened? Yeah, I was charged with three things. My favorite one was [12:20] walking on a highway, but it was an obstruction and disorderly conduct. Those were the sorts of [12:26] things that they tended to give as charges for protesters. But as I know, I didn't do anything [12:34] wrong when I was there. I did something that I think was the most important thing that I've ever [12:39] done, which is to stand up for the rights of the vulnerable. The way that it's getting cranked up to [12:44] the next level is that protesters are now facing these terrorism related charges and prosecutors are [12:48] pointing to alleged ties to this amorphous Antifa group. As somebody who often is out there and [12:56] participating in protests, do you worry that they would target you with that? Sure. I mean, that's [13:02] something that especially religious leaders and people of conscience everywhere have to think about [13:07] these days. We're living in very trying times. There are times that I never thought that I would [13:12] live through as an American, where just simply raising your voice and living out your values in public [13:18] puts you in danger in some way, in danger of perhaps losing your livelihood. These folks, [13:23] as you were reading, they have families. They have connections to their community. They are in so many [13:29] ways the bedrock of our communities. And what the government's doing when they are trying to have [13:35] these terrorism charges and trying to say it's terrorism to live out your values in public, is [13:39] they're trying to take these folks from our communities. They're trying to really deprive us of [13:44] what it means to flourish and deprive us of moral voices that, frankly, we need now more than ever. [13:51] Reverend Wolfe, stay with me if you would. I want to take a quick commercial break and continue this [13:55] conversation on the other side. Stay with us, everybody. We'll be right back and connect. [13:59] All right, let's pick up where we left off with Reverend Michael Wolfe, the senior minister at Lake [14:03] Street Church of Evanston, Illinois. He was arrested at an ICE protest last year. There is new reporting, [14:11] Reverend, this week that found that the Department of Homeland Security is actively monitoring social media accounts [14:16] and neighborhood group chats. And in all these cities that I went to to cover the ICE raids, [14:22] almost every one of these cities, probably everywhere I was actually, utilizes these tools [14:29] to keep their eyes on these masked, armed agents that are sort of marauding through the streets. [14:36] As somebody who organizes vigils and protests yourself, is it going to affect how you operate too? [14:41] Well, yeah, I mean, on some level it has to, because we want to keep people as safe as possible. [14:48] That doesn't mean we're going to stop doing the work or anything, but it means that we're going [14:51] to have to be as cautious and diligent as possible about our, certainly our visual hygiene and being [14:58] able to make sure that there's, there's not this sort of way that people can basically make up evidence [15:05] that you're doing something wrong or terrible simply for voicing your conscience. So it's definitely going [15:10] to make sure, one of the things we have to do is make sure that people have access to as much [15:16] security as they can when they participate in these actions, for sure. [15:20] The way I see it is that the point of this kind of surveillance and prosecution is to get people to [15:26] surrender their right to dissent without ever having to explicitly take that right away. Do I have that [15:31] right in your opinion? [15:32] Yes, I think that's absolutely true. I think that it's just to chill folks from being able to go out and [15:39] and raise their voices and live in accordance with their values. It's, it's to try to make people [15:45] think, is it really worth it for me to be out there? And what, what if the risks and the costs [15:52] are just too much for even voice, what God might be leading me to do when I think about my case. [15:57] And when I think about the case of a lot of people of faith and people of conscience everywhere, [16:02] we're supposed to be living our best selves, we're supposed to be living in accordance with our values. [16:07] And this is trying to make it so that you have to pick between, are you going to be safe or are you [16:13] going to live in accordance with those values? And that shouldn't be a choice that we have to make [16:16] in America. [16:18] But there is a choice and I wonder what worries you more. What happens if people keep protesting [16:22] and challenging the administration or what happens to the country if people do nothing ultimately? [16:26] I think it's more dangerous to do nothing. I think that what people can do to you, if you already [16:33] surrender your rights, if you already say, hey, you know what, I'm not going to live in accordance with, [16:37] I know what is right. I'm not going to make those moral judgments. Instead, I'm going to sit back. [16:41] That is not only dangerous for your soul and your person, that's dangerous for our country. We can't [16:46] build a country on people who don't actually live out their values in public. We have to have that. [16:51] It's a part of what it means to be a democracy. And as a person of faith and somebody who advises [16:56] people on what choice to make, the choice I want people to make is to be courageous, as courageous as [17:02] possible. Not everyone has to do the big, the bold, the risky, but there's something for all of us to do. [17:07] There's something some way for us to engage in redeeming this country and moving us towards a better and brighter future. [17:15] Before the break, we heard about what one of the sister sister, one of the prairie land defendants had to say that she can love [17:21] this country and oppose fascism at the same time. I found that I just found her speaking out to be so hopeful. [17:30] I wonder what's given you hope at the moment. What's given me hope is the folks who are fighting [17:35] for a new day. I don't think that this is this is let up at all. If you look at the detentions, [17:40] they're at an all time high. If you look, ICE is trying to expand different detention centers. [17:44] They're announcing new detention centers all the time. There's this real attempt to change the [17:48] character and nature of this country. And people are fighting back and they're fighting back from the [17:52] deepest wells of their conscience. And that to me, that's people of faith that's everywhere. [17:57] There's a diverse ways that this comes into being. But for me, that gives me so much hope [18:02] because it means that we can have a future if people are willing to make that calculus and say, [18:06] you know what, it's more important for me to speak up than it is to be safe. And I think that that is [18:11] something that I just derive a lot of hope from. It's my fellow Americans that give me hope. [18:18] Yeah. You know, we've talked a lot about about ICE, but I said this earlier in the week, too, [18:21] when this Wall Street Journal story came out. It is a very slippery slope between, you know, [18:26] federal agents looking after people that are protesting ICE and speaking out against ICE to [18:31] whatever other political speech that that people have to say that's opposed to this administration. [18:35] And that is why we should all be laser focused on all of this. Reverend Michael Wolfe, [18:39] the senior minister at Lake Street Church of Evanston, Illinois. Thanks for being here. [18:42] Thanks for having me. You got it.