15 Antifa Members Charged With Impeding Agents During Minnesota Immigration Crackdown

Last year, President Trump issued National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, which directed the Department of Justice to prioritize politically motivated violence. To accomplish that mission, the Deputy Attorney General stood up Joint Task Force Vanguard to enforce a national security strategy to investigate, prosecute, and disrupt those who engage in political violence and intimidation. Today, a federal indictment was unsealed charging 15 defendants with conspiracy to impede or injure federal officers and other charges related to efforts of two Minneapolis-based Antifa groups that violently opposed the enforcement of federal law in our state. The defendants are members and associates of Direct Action Minnesota. They are charged with conspiracy to impede or injure a federal officer, solicitation to commit a crime of violence, interstate threats, interstate stalking, assault on a federal officer, and destruction of government property. Earlier this morning, agents of Homeland Security Investigations conducted a coordinated law enforcement operation, culminating in the arrest of 12 of the 15 defendants. One defendant had already been in custody on other federal charges. Two defendants remain fugitives at large. Today's charges and arrests reflect a broad federal effort to address organized, lawless behavior which seeks to disrupt the execution of federal law, endanger law enforcement, and importantly, endanger the very communities that these defendants falsely claim to be protecting. Show up ready to go, okay? Not talking about peaceful protests anymore. We're not talking about having polite conversations anymore. We're not talking about peaceful protests. His words, not mine. During Operation Metro Surge, Direct Action Minnesota infiltrated and exploited lawful protests to more efficiently carry out its unlawful direct actions, targeting operations involving ICE, as well as other federal law enforcement, and as well as other state law enforcement. In order to achieve the ends of the conspiracy, Direct Action Minnesota was highly organized, holding meetings on a regular basis, and engaged in what they called operational security, or OPSEC. Peaceful protest is a protected right and a cornerstone of our democracy. We respect and defend that right. However, there's a clear line that cannot be crossed. When protest turns into rioting, violence, or criminal activity, it becomes unlawful, and it will not be tolerated. We have a group of people who quite deliberately got together, planned violence, used violence, and whether or not the extent to which they actually achieved their ends of harming people, whether it was by the overturning of vehicles and RVs in the street, whether it was by the throwing of ice blocks at vehicles, whether it was by use of their vehicles in other ways, whether it was by their stalking, whether or not they actually, at the end of the day, caused bodily harm is not the measure of whether or not they committed a serious federal crime. And I wouldn't dare say, you know, we just cannot have in this country all people getting together, engaging in all of these violent acts, and then simply saying, well, you know, nobody got hurt, so how bad could it have been?