The case has become a bellwether for the Trump<\/a> administration\u2019s crackdown<\/a> on dissent<\/a> from the left<\/a>. The government charged<\/a> people involved with the anti-ICE protest with a slew of charges, including attempted murder and terrorism counts that defense attorneys said are being used to criminalize protest.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re here asking you guys to put protesters in prison as terrorists.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re here asking you guys to put protesters in prison as terrorists,\u201d Burns, the defense lawyer, told jurors. \u201cThat\u2019s not happened before. And you are literally the only people in the world who can stop it.\u201d<\/p>\n During 10 days of testimony in a packed Fort Worth, Texas, courtroom, prosecutors bombarded jurors with images of radical zines printed on the press, anti-government internet memes, drawings of burning cop cars, and a video of an unidentified street brawl between far-left and far-right protesters.<\/p>\n Prosecutors acknowledged those materials were protected by the First Amendment but said they showed the roughly dozen people who assembled outside the ICE facility were steeped in antifa tactics.<\/p>\n Eight of nine defendants on trial this month face material support for terrorism charges for wearing \u201cblack bloc\u201d clothes at the protest. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel have hailed the first-ever use of terrorism charges against alleged antifa members.<\/p>\n Defense attorneys argued Wednesday that prosecutors had wildly overcharged a case that should have centered on the alleged shooter, Benjamin Song, instead of the larger group.<\/p>\n Guilt by Zine<\/p>\n Prosecutors presented much of the evidence that might be expected at an attempted murder trial: ballistics and fingerprint experts, eyewitness police officers, and cooperating witnesses.<\/p>\n They also presented lengthy testimony about radical pamphlets and artwork collected from the defendants arrested that night or in raids during the following days.<\/p>\n Despite labeling the defendants \u201ca North Texas antifa cell\u201d in their indictment, prosecutors have acknowledged that they were at most a loose-knit collection of people from the Dallas\u2013Fort Worth\u2019s small leftist scene of anarchists and socialists.<\/p>\n Two of the scene\u2019s fixtures were Elizabeth and Ines Soto, a married couple who operated the printing press and helped run a local reading group called the Emma Goldman Book Club, named for the early 20th-century anarchist revolutionary.<\/p>\n At one point during testimony Tuesday, a prosecutor spent more than half an hour scrolling through a Twitter account allegedly operated by the Sotos. The Twitter feed included a retweet of a December 2016 post with the words \u201cHow to handle fash in your hood\u201d that included a shaky video of a street fight between protesters accompanied by the Flatbush Zombies song \u201cDeath 2.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI crack your fucking skull and use that as a bowl for cereal. I\u2019m so serial. Ted Bundy, give me money, Son of Sam, gun in hand. Jeffrey Dahmer, with two llamas,\u201d the jury heard in the song\u2019s lyrics.<\/p>\n Defense attorneys objected to the introduction of the video as evidence.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, it is prejudicial,\u201d Assistant U.S. Attorney Shawn Smith told the judge in defense of using the video. \u201cThe whole reason we\u2019re putting it into evidence is because it\u2019s prejudicial.\u201d<\/p>\n Though U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, a Donald Trump appointee, allowed the Twitter feed to be presented in court, prosecutors could not definitively establish whether the Sotos had posted the video or what incident it depicted.<\/p>\n The Sotos, however, have not disputed that they were key members of the reading group. In his closing argument, Smith said the group was a front to recruit new antifa members.<\/p>\n \u201cEmma Goldman Book Club,\u201d Smith said. \u201cIt sounds very innocuous. It\u2019s camouflage for what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> To help jurors interpret the book club\u2019s readings and other materials, prosecutors presented a researcher at a far-right think tank as an expert.<\/p>\n Kyle Shideler of the Center for Security Policy once focused his research on the Muslim Brotherhood. After the 2020 George Floyd protests raged, he wrote a book about \u201cblack identity extremists<\/a>.\u201d In recent years he has focused on another right-wing boogeyman: antifa.<\/p>\n Shideler said Monday that he helped write the definition of \u201cantifa\u201d<\/a> included in the government\u2019s indictment. He walked that testimony back Tuesday, saying that he only conferred on a draft. <\/p>\n Prosecutors also had Shideler read Trump\u2019s September 22 executive order purporting to designate antifa as a domestic terrorist organization<\/a>, in an apparent attempt to suggest that the language was borrowed from the order.<\/p>\n Shideler described what he said were common tactics of antifa, including using the messaging app Signal \u2014 which Shideler said he also used \u2014 and wearing \u201cblack bloc\u201d clothes to obscure identities. The phrase refers to instances where groups of left-wing demonstrators dress in all black<\/a> to make them less individually identifiable.<\/p>\n The point of that testimony came into focus during the prosecution\u2019s closing arguments. Using Signal and wearing black-bloc clothing were \u201ctactics that assisted in the ambush of a cop,\u201d said Smith.<\/p>\n \u201cMaterial support. It sounds \u2014 I don\u2019t know\u00a0\u2014 nefarious. Complicated. It\u2019s actually very simple,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n He said that wearing black clothes at the noise demonstration would be enough to convict the eight defendants accused of material support.<\/p>\n \u201cProviding your body as camouflage for others to do the enumerated acts is providing support,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s impossible to tell who is doing what. That\u2019s the point.\u201d<\/p>\n The government used Shideler and the antifa talk to try to distract jurors from the defendants\u2019 actual actions on the night of July 4, said MarQuetta Clayton<\/a>, an attorney for defendant Maricela Rueda. She also warned that the trial served as a larger proving ground for the government\u2019s attempts to criminalize antifa<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe government\u2019s expert on antifa said his career may be boosted by the outcome of this case,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is an experiment for them. But this courtroom is not a laboratory, and Maricela is not a lab rat.\u201d<\/p>\n Charged for Carrying a Box<\/p>\n Rueda\u2019s husband, Daniel Sanchez Estrada<\/a>, is the only defendant on trial who is not accused of participating in the July 4 protest. Instead, prosecutors have charged him and his wife with conspiring to obstruct justice by moving a box of zines out of Rueda\u2019s house after her arrest.<\/p>\n Free speech advocates say that Estrada\u2019s arrest sets a dangerous precedent that criminalizes the mere possession of anti-government material<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cHe is on trial for two things: Carrying a box, and conspiracy to carry a box.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe is on trial for two things,\u201d said Sanchez\u2019s public defender, Christopher Weinbel. \u201cCarrying a box, and conspiracy to carry a box, of which they try to call evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n Weinbel said the box contained Sanchez\u2019s own possessions, the timeline of his movements disproved the theory that he was acting at the direction of his wife, and that a government agent had also testified that none of the materials were used in the investigation.<\/p>\n Smith, the prosecutor, argued that moving the boxes was part of a larger cover-up in the hours and days after the demonstration.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is important to the group is hiding their material,\u201d he said. \u201cThis anarchist, insurrectionist, hating-the-government material.\u201d<\/p>\n Song and the Rest<\/p>\n Defense attorneys chose their words carefully when it came to Song, the person accused of shooting an AR-15 rifle at two detention center guards and the Alvarado, Texas, police officer who was hit.<\/p>\n None of the defense lawyers overtly blamed Song for the bloodshed, but several suggested that the government should have distinguished between Song and the rest of the protesters.<\/p>\n \u201cThis should have been a three-day attempted murder trial of one person,\u201d Weinbel said.<\/p>\n We\u2019re independent of corporate interests \u2014 and powered by members. Join us. <\/p>\n Join Our Newsletter <\/p>\n Thank You For Joining! <\/p>\n \n Original reporting. Fearless journalism. Delivered to you. <\/p>\n Will you take the next step to support our independent journalism by becoming a member of The Intercept?\n <\/p>\n By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n Prosecutors painted Song as the ringleader that night. Still, they argued that four defendants who are also on trial for attempted murder \u2014 Song, Rueda, Autumn Hill, and Megan Morris \u2014 could have reasonably foreseen that Song would use violence based on conversations before the demonstration.<\/p>\n The eight defendants who face material support charges gave aid to the attack by wearing black clothes, prosecutors allege. They include the defendants accused of attempted murder along with the Sotos, Savanna Batten, and Zachary Evetts.<\/p>\n Song\u2019s attorney, Phillip Hayes, said during his closing argument that Song was only trying to shoot \u201csuppressive\u201d fire at the ground after police arrived on the scene. Hayes suggested that a ricocheting bullet wounded the officer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Federal agents raiding the home of two alleged antifa \u201coperatives\u201d seized a telling piece of evidence, a defense…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1493,3590,8,1501,1494,9,1492,1498,1499,1500,3592,3591,7,2648],"class_list":{"0":"post-4384","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-article-type-article-post","9":"tag-day-thursday","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-language-english","12":"tag-medium","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-page-type-article","15":"tag-partner-factiva","16":"tag-partner-smart-news","17":"tag-partner-social-flow","18":"tag-subject-justice","19":"tag-time-21-00","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-wc-1000-1999"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116219373327568806","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/collection_21_AP25080472815958.jpg.webp.jpeg\")
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