Anti-ICE Protesters in Minnesota Charged with Conspiracy

Summary

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It Could Happen Here

Episode: Anti-ICE Protesters in Minnesota Charged with Conspiracy
Air Date: June 17, 2026
Hosts/Panel: James Today, Maura Meltzer Cohen (Mo), Olive, Margaret

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the recent federal indictment of anti-ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) protesters in Minnesota, exploring the historical, legal, and social dynamics at play. The panel—legal experts and activists with direct experience in Minneapolis community movements—breaks down the context of the charges, the nature of the alleged conspiracy, and the implications for protest rights and organizing today.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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Historical and Geographic Context (02:54–05:01)

• Grounding the Discussion:
  • Mo provides crucial context about Fort Snelling and the Whipple Building—the central locations referenced in the indictment.
  • Quote - Mo (Maura Meltzer Cohen):

    "Fort Snelling is a US Military installation that was built on a sacred site... Not only is the United States federal government perpetuating its violent occupation in the same places... but they're doing it in the exact same place as, I think, the largest mass execution in US History, which was a mass execution of Dakota people..." (03:01)

• Relevance to Current Events:
  • The federal government's actions echo its historical overreach and violence against marginalized groups.
  • Olive clarifies that the Whipple Building is the Midwest ICE headquarters, pivotal to the alleged incidents.

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The Indictment, Its Content, and Immediate Community Response (05:34–12:33)

• Scope of Charges:
  • 15 individuals indicted; as of recording, most had been detained, with one potentially negotiating surrender.
  • Accusations focus on alleged conspiracy to obstruct federal immigration enforcement—largely through protests and blockade actions at the Whipple Building on January 23 and March 1, 2026.
  • Quote - Margaret:

    "In the entire indictment, there are very few things that the average person reading this indictment would be like, oh, that sounds like a crime... One is kicking a police car, and one is this using a vehicle as a dangerous weapon to make, quote, physical contact and inflict bodily injury..." (10:49)

• Protest Context:
  • Large community turnouts at court triggered federal pepper sprays and crowd control tactics, underscoring ongoing state violence.
• Press Conference and Media:
  • Panelists highlight the disconnect between the government’s characterization of the events and both local journalistic inquiry and eyewitness experience.
  • Quote - James:

    "People ask questions which are good and they got answers which were useless." (05:57)

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Legal Analysis: Conspiracy & The First Amendment (17:07–21:48)

• Nature of Conspiracy Charges (17:18):
  • Mo describes conspiracy as "a fascinating legal animal" that allows prosecutors to criminalize constitutionally protected behavior under the guise of collective intent to commit something illegal.
  • Quote - Mo:

    "A conspiracy is a claim that a group of people made an agreement to do something illegal and then took steps... in the service of carrying out their illegal agreement." (17:18)

  • Items such as group chats, public organizing, and even ideological discussion (e.g. self-identifying as anarchists) are recast as evidence of criminality.
• Misuse Of Protected Conduct:
  • Observing law enforcement is explicitly protected by the First Amendment, but the state attempts to strip that protection by associating such acts with an alleged illegal aim.
  • Margaret notes, "It's the kind of thing that protest organizers have been doing in this country for at least several decades..." (12:00)

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The Danger of the “Good Protester, Bad Protester” Narrative (22:09–27:03)

• Divide and Conquer Tactics:
  • Mo warns that the prosecution’s framing divides social movements and can later put “good” protesters at risk.
  • Quote - Mo:

    "...they are making it possible... to later come back and go after even those people that they are currently defining as good protesters." (22:09)

  • Margaret observes that community unity in Minneapolis may blunt this tactic:

    "...there is such a unity around, like the thing that is happening is far more important than our differences that, like, I think they're not going to successfully split people in the general discourse." (24:53)

• Solidarity Across Ideologies:
  • Olive emphasizes wide support, from average community members to organizations like DSA and unions.

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Allegations vs. Actual Harm (27:12–39:07)

• Disparity Between Inconvenience and Harm:
  • Mo contrasts the stakes:

    "...what is at stake for the community in Minneapolis is true life or death stakes. And what is at stake for the ICE agents is that they are inconvenienced all morning." (27:12)

• Labeling Protest Tools as Threats:
  • The use of “aggressive use of shields” as evidence of violence starkly illustrates state misunderstanding (and mischaracterization) of protester intentions.

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Operational Security (OPSEC), Surveillance, and Messaging (32:38–36:59)

• How Evidence Was Gathered:
  • Most "evidence" comes from group chats (e.g., Signal), public meetings, and possibly seized phones—raising issues around digital security and infiltration paranoia.
  • Quote - Mo:

    "Playing who's the Cop in the Group chat is a game that everybody loses. And also not everything needs to be said on the Internet." (33:35)

• Encouragement for Activists:
  • “Have the courage of your convictions,” emphasizes Mo, but act with care and don’t let paranoia derail movements.

    "I don't think the solution to that is to never talk to your friends or to never organize. I do think that it's important to remember that basically anything you say can and will be used against you... but that doesn't mean we don't talk to each other. It doesn't mean we self-censor. It means we have the courage of our convictions." (36:55)

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The “Anarchist” Label and State Narrative (37:15–39:55)

• Criminalizing Ideology:
  • The indictment focuses on participants' anarchist identity, conflating it with a predisposition for violence.
  • Panelists push back, explaining anarchism as grounded in care and mutual aid.
  • Quote - James:

    "The more that we can explain that anarchists mostly just want to make tea for you and be nice to you, then the further we can go to dispelling [the misunderstanding]." (38:23)

  • Mo highlights absurdity of the state's framing:

    "the phrase 'the aggressive use of shields'... perfectly illustrates the fundamental misapprehension that the government has about what an anarchist is and what we're up to..." (39:07)

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Responding to State Repression: Legal Landscape and Community Resilience (40:29–46:59)

• Legal Process and Outlook:
  • Many of those arraigned were immediately released, indicating possible lack of strong evidence and highlighting localized legal support structures.
  • Comparison to other federal protest cases underlines the unique context and resilience in Minneapolis/St. Paul.
  • Quote - Olive:

    "...that's a big deal that people were facing conspiracy charges, which are very serious federal charges, and were released today at their arraignments. I think it shows... an indication of where the courts are at." (40:29)

• Solidarity and Court Support:
  • Margaret and Olive focus on continued unity and support—showing up at court, supporting each other materially and emotionally, and not succumbing to fear.
  • Mo reminds:

    "No action is over until the last person accused is home and free. We have to keep doing court support. We have to do prisoner support." (43:50)

• The Purpose of Punishment:
  • Olive cites a recurring abolitionist mantra:

    "The punishment is the process. ...It's incredibly difficult to go through this [court] process. But staying grounded in the reality of where you are, [and] the cases that have been dropped… is a way of taking back power from the state..." (46:09)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote / Moment | |-----------|------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:01 | Mo | "Fort Snelling is a US Military installation that was built on a sacred site..." | | 10:49 | Margaret | "...kicking a police car, and ... using a vehicle as a dangerous weapon..." | | 17:18 | Mo | “A conspiracy is a claim that a group of people made an agreement to do something illegal…” | | 22:09 | Mo | "...they are making it possible... to later come back and go after even those people that...are good protesters”| | 27:12 | Mo | “…what is at stake for the community in Minneapolis is true life or death stakes. And...ICE agents...inconvenienced.”| | 33:35 | Mo | "Playing who's the Cop in the Group chat is a game that everybody loses..." | | 38:23 | James | "...anarchists mostly just want to make tea for you and be nice to you..." | | 43:50 | Mo | "No action is over until the last person accused is home and free. We have to keep doing court support..." | | 46:09 | Olive | "The punishment is the process... But staying grounded... is a way of taking back power from the state..." |

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Takeaways

• The Minnesota indictment is less about concrete illegal acts and more about criminalizing standard protest organization and ideology, particularly around the right to dissent and the use of collective action.
• The episode emphasizes how the government reframes protected conduct as criminal, strategically divides movements, and mislabels ideologies like anarchism as threats.
• Robust mutual aid infrastructure and cross-ideological solidarity in Minneapolis/St. Paul are powerful defenses against repression.
• Listeners are encouraged to remain vigilant—but hopeful, grounded in solidarity, and committed to supporting all those caught up in state repression.

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• Historical context of protest sites: 02:54–05:01
• Details of the indictment and alleged actions: 05:34–12:33
• Legal breakdown of conspiracy and First Amendment issues: 17:07–21:48
• Analysis of state tactics & protester solidarity: 22:09–27:03
• OPSEC and digital security discussion: 32:38–36:59
• Community/organizational response and lessons for future protest: 40:29–46:59

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This summary provides an in-depth look at the episode's themes and arguments, capturing its analysis of state repression, activist strategy, and the enduring strength of Minnesota’s protest community.

Transcript

[Akilah Hughes]

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[James Today]

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the show. It's me, James Today, and I'm very fortunate to be joined by three other people to discuss this indictment in Minnesota. I'm going to ask them all to introduce themselves. So if we start off with you, Mo, that would be wonderful.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

Sure. Good afternoon. I'm Maura Meltzer Cohen. I'm an attorney, abolitionist, and educator. I primarily represent people arrested in the course of justice struggles, and I do a lot of popular legal education. I also teach at CUNY School of Law.

[James Today]

Wonderful. Thank you, Olive. If you'd like to go next.

[Olive]

Hi, I'm Olive. I'm a legal worker, a movement legal worker based in Minneapolis. And I also make outlaw. So you might have heard my voice on here before.

[James Today]

Thank you, Magpie.

[Margaret]

Hi, I'm Margaret. I am sometimes on this show, you probably hear me on Sundays with Cool Zone Media Book Club. And like you all, I woke up to a lot of messages this morning being like, oh, fuck. Things are happening in Minneapolis. People are being raided. As always, we started off with some false information or some, like, early rumors, but right away, people were like, there's a bunch of people who are getting arrested. And people started sharing that. We were about to see a press conference by the federal government, and they were going to be like, we've caught those terrible antifa terrorists. And I thought, that's the kind of thing I like paying attention to. So I woke up. Well, I'd been awake for a minute, and then I watched a press conference, and then I read a very long indictment. And I think I'm not the one who's supposed to do the very short version of it all, but that's how I. That's my narrative version of what happened.

[James Today]

Yeah, I think that's a good narrative. We are Going to get on to talking about the indictment, talking about what it does and doesn't do and what it means and doesn't mean. But, Mo, I know you wanted to begin with some really important context about the physical locations where the alleged actions took place.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

Yeah, I wanted to ground this whole discussion in the historical reality of the United States federal government's violent colonial history in this specific place. So one of the places that is mentioned a number of times in the indictment is Fort Snelling. And Fort Snelling is a US Military installation that was built on a sacred site at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers. I think it's really critical that we understand that not only is the United States federal government continuing to perpetuate its violent occupation in the same places that it has historically done so in ways that are intended to either include or exclude certain groups of people, depending on what's expedient for the federal government, but that they're doing it in the exact same place as, I think, the largest mass execution in US History, which was a mass execution of Dakota people, that, after it was carried out, was determined to have been totally unlawful and to have involved totally insufficient legal process on the part of the United States government and to have involved actions that far exceeded the lawful legitimate authority of the US Government. And, of course, that's exactly what we're seeing here, again, is the United States federal government taking actions that far exceed its lawful authority and punishing people who resist those excesses.

[James Today]

Yeah, I think that's really important.

[Olive]

One thing I just want to add. I'm not sure if you said this clearly, but Fort Snelling is also the area that. Where Whipple is located. So you're going to probably hear us talk about the Whipple Building, and that is the ICE headquarters for the Midwest. It's where people detained by ICE in all of Minnesota are processed through, and protesters arrested by ICE as well.

[Carlos King]

Yeah.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

Thank you, Olive. I don't think I did make that clear.

[James Today]

Yeah, that's a. It's very important context. If people are looking for a little bit more context on Whipple Building, Olive made a wonderful podcast for us that they can listen to about that. And Margaret and I did some reporting when we were in the Twin Cities as well. We will link to all of those in the show notes subsequently to this. Like Margaret. Right. I began to receive messages that we would be seeing people have been detained. We'd be seeing oppressor and an indictment. So I watched the presser, and then they actually released the indictment like 15 minutes before the presser, I believe.

[Margaret]

Yeah. And they were like mad at people for having not already read a like 94 page indictment.

[James Today]

Yeah. They kept saying read. Well, this is a thing, Right. They can, that, that allows them when they're answering questions to say, well, read the indictment. Yeah, but then for people not to ask questions about things that are covered or not covered in the indictment.

[Margaret]

Yeah, it was a shit show. They told people to read the indictment. The indictment did not say what they claimed to said.

[James Today]

Yeah, it was a press conference. It was exactly squarely what I would expect from a press conference in that like people ask questions which are good and they got answers which were useless.

[Margaret]

Yeah.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

I was impressed with how quick the press was to point out, to identify, even without having read the indictment, to identify the gaping holes in, in the government's claims.

[James Today]

Yeah. And there's been a lot of really excellent local reporting in the twin 50s for a long time actually. It's, it's one of the places where like local journalism has not been gutted just yet, which is a good thing. The indictment that I have in front of me here indicts, I believe 15 individuals. From what we know, one of those people was already detained. Another 12 have been detained and I believe two are yet to be detained.

[Margaret]

As of recording, I think we're down

[Olive]

to one is yet to be detained.

[James Today]

Okay, we're down to one.

[Olive]

Yeah.

[James Today]

And that they suggested in the, in the presser that those people are maybe negotiating surrender. Yeah. And at the time we are recording, there is a big gathering outside of federal court which is being attacked by feds of some description, I'm not quite sure, maybe FPS pepper spraying people. We saw them throwing some kind of less lethal grenades, but like something that people who live in the Twin Cities will have become very familiar with at this point. Right. Which is this kind of state violence. Yes. As MO has pointed out in the chat, these people are being pepper sprayed for attending court proceedings which are public. In the indictment, the District attorney I guess, outlines that these people were members of a group called DAM Direct Action Minnesota, previously known as Twin Cities Direct Action. There are a number of other groups and acronyms here that I don't think are hugely important. That they are alleging that they were part of a group that conspired to, among other things, disrupt and obstruct federal agents to. I'm going to quote here. The purpose of the conspiracy include the following. Preventing the enforcement of federal immigration law by force. Intimidation and threats opposing the authority of the United States government. Preventing hindering or delaying by force the execution of the laws governing the identification, detention and removal of non citizens to include the Immigration and Nationality act and preventing, impeding and interfering federal law enforcement from discharging their duties, including enforcement of federal immigration law by force, intimidation and threats. They then go on to detail a great number of messages from a number of signal chats. They specifically identify them as signal chats. And a large number of the messages pertain to a protest held at the Whipple Federal Building on the 23rd of January. That's a Protestant Margaret and I covered. And you will have heard our coverage of it before, or you can go back and listen to it. The specific allegations here that the accused people conspired to create a soft quote unquote and hard quote unquote barricade. The soft barricade took the form of a shield wall that Margaret and I reported on the time. The hard barricade they're alleging was a number of trailers that they're alleging the accused people attempted to flip over in order to prevent Feds accessing Whipple.

[Olive]

From my skim read of the indictment so far, it looks like the actual actions that the conspiracy charge focuses on, largely about the planning and carrying out of two blockade actions at the Whipple Building on January 23 and March 1, and then the participation in the coordination of commuting or ICE watching by car and general ice watch activities after the occupation drawdown from March to June. And the conspiracy charge and the evidence that goes to those two things takes up most of the 94 page indictment.

[James Today]

Yep. And then as we get to the very, very end, somebody is accused of kicking a government vehicle and somebody else is accused of getting in a road traffic accident with a government vehicle, which, Margaret, I know you'd read that before, but it's being alleged that they were deliberately using their vehicle as a weapon. Right?

[Margaret]

Yeah. The, the indictment doesn't say that it was a car accident. The indictment implies that it caused physical contact. And we don't know whether that was physical contact with a vehicle or the officer themselves.

[James Today]

Got it.

[Margaret]

In the entire indictment, there are very few things that the average person reading this indictment would be like, oh, that sounds like a crime. And one of those is kicking a police car. And one of those is the this using a vehicle as a dangerous weapon to make, quote, physical contact and inflict bodily injury. And that is number 276 out of 276 not counts, but like claims made in this document. So they are clearly spending the overwhelming majority talking about other things Go to claims Mo.

[James Today]

Is that a reasonable way to refer to them?

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

They said allegations.

[James Today]

Allegations. There you go.

[Margaret]

Yes. So there's 276 allegations. And the vast majority are the kind of things that the average person reading a thing would say. That sounds like the most free speech thing I've ever read. Not just one of the allegations is that one defendant made a video calling for people to come armed during the press conference. They actually did a good job though. The reporters were like, cool. Is there any evidence that that person or anyone who that they spoke to actually came armed? And they were like, we are not answering that.

[Olive]

Yeah.

[Margaret]

Which is more or less what they said to everything. But overall, we are talking about a document that describes how to organize any protest. Yeah, how to organize any protest. It talks about how do we organize our signal groups so that we can communicate more clearly with each other and how do we know that the people in our group are who they say they are. And it's. It's the kind of thing that protest organizers have been doing in this country for at least several decades. That's just what I can speak to personally. And it is being framed not in a different way.

[James Today]

They've.

[Margaret]

They've done this kind of thing before, but it is in this current real bad context where everything gets real intense.

[James Today]

The point that you're making, Margaret, is very important because a lot of people will look at this and be like, this is standard First Amendment shit. And I don't want people to think that standard First Amendment shit is illegal now, because that is what these prosecutions do. They have a chilling effect on protective First Amendment activity.

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[Margaret]

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[James Today]

So, Mo, I know you enjoy the First Amendment. Would you like to explain to us exactly what conspiracy is and, and what's going on here with this charge of the conspiracy?

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

I do. I am a First Amendment enjoyer. So if you look through this indictment, almost all of the allegations that are made about the, quote, overt acts, the actions that were taken in support of the conspiracy, are, as you said, really First Amendment protected conduct. So in order to understand how First Amendment protected conduct can be evidence of criminality, we have to look at what is a conspiracy. And a conspiracy is a fascinating legal animal, because what it is is a claim that a group of people made an agreement to do something illegal and then took steps, overt acts engaged in these, quote, overt acts in the service of carrying out their illegal agreement or their agreement to do something unlawful. Right. So all of these things, you know, there's so many things in here that are clearly constitutionally protected. They're. They're very preoccupied with people being members of different groups, identifying themselves as anarchists, wearing T shirts or sweatshirts that are. At one point, I think they say they're antifa branded. I didn't know we had a brand.

[James Today]

Yeah.

[Margaret]

Oh, yeah. I could send you some merch. Sorry, I don't know if I should make that joke. That's a joke.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

You know, there are all these things, you know, people having conversations, people using rhetoric, and all of these things are clearly First Amendment protected. And then there are people talking about the Second Amendment, which of course is also a constitutional amendment.

[James Today]

Yeah.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

And, you know, all kinds of, you know, interesting evidence where they, they talk about people following or identifying ICE agents or, or vehicles driven by ICE agents. Well, we have a First Amendment right to observe law enforcement in the public discharge of their duties. Looking at an ICE agent or taking notes on what they're doing is actually not only not unlawful, it's clearly First Amendment protected conduct. Right. These people are doing legal observation. And so what is the thing that's allegedly removing the First Amendment protection from these behaviors is this claim that all of these things are being done in the service of this larger agreement to do something Illegal. What is the illegal thing? Interfering with the discharge of ice. You know, I guess I'll say duties for a given value of duties.

[Margaret]

There's a lot of air quotes happening for people who can't see.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

Sorry. I remember that this is not actually a visual medium.

[Margaret]

Yeah, thank God.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

I will verbalize this for the record. So the thing about conspiracy that makes it so attractive is that it makes it possible for prosecutors to criminalize garden variety, lawful and even constitutionally protected behavior and whole communities of people who are engaged in those behaviors by making the claim that all of those things and all of those associations and all of those beliefs and all of those otherwise protected activities are in the service of a larger agreement to do something illegal. Now, of course, they're not addressing the fact that people are organizing themselves to prevent ICE from doing things that we know are very much not lawful. Right. Like detaining people who are citizens. Detaining, among others, indigenous people.

[James Today]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

Punching through people's windshields and pulling them out of vehicles, like, I don't know, murdering two people. And that's not being dealt with in this at all. Right. The. The idea that Minneapolis is organizing itself to prevent this massive, you know, unlawful occupation that, true to form, exceeds the lawful authority of these agencies.

[James Today]

To your point on Minneapolis organizing itself, it's worth noting that every single one of these indicted people is from the Twin Cities. And they repeatedly said in the press conference and the indictment that these people tried to hijack peaceful or First Amendment protests. But as they admitted in the press that every single one of these people was from that community, I would actually

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

like to point something out about that specifically. One of the things that's happening in this indictment is that the prosecutors have framed it as these bad protesters are trying to use as cover the actions of legitimate peaceful protesters. So what they're doing is they're setting up this idea that there are good protesters and bad protesters, which first of all is a way to divide and conquer social movements. But the other thing that they're doing, and I really want people to. To be alert to this, is that they are making it possible by associating the two. They're making it possible to later come back and go after even those people that they are currently defining as good protesters. So there's a point in this indictment where they make a claim that an organization. I think it's the. It might have been the 50501 organization. We need to check that.

[Margaret]

But they are mentioned in the indictment.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

They have mentioned as a DSA and the DSA is. And a union is. There's a point at which an organization asks Twin Cities DA for assistance with a rally. And even though in this situation I believe the prosecutors are setting it up like, oh, well, this legitimate group is working with this, the bad guy group, what they've done is created a discourse that will allow them, if they want to, that will allow the government to come back and say, look at this group purporting to be a union and doing legitimate peaceful protests, but they're actually enlisting the assistance of, you know, the direct action group. So on the one hand, you know, I think the indictment is, is playing right into this good protester, bad protester narrative, which, to be clear, it doesn't matter if you are protesting in the air quotes right way, you will still be subject to police violence. Right. The function of this sort of non violent protest is that it exposes how unwarranted police violence is, not that police are not violent toward you if you are protesting the quote right way.

[James Today]

Yeah. Margaret and I were there very clearly identified as Press on the 23rd of January at the Whipple Building. And that did not stop us being exposed to police violence. We saw people approaching the cops to ask what they were supposed to do and get arrested. Yeah, yeah. We saw a cameraman from Italy get pepper sprayed face.

[Margaret]

Yeah, that was, that was what I was thinking of. Yeah. And actually, Mo, I really like this point because I actually don't think that the good protester, bad protesters split is going to work in the popular conversation in this particular case as effectively as it usually does. And that's part of why ICE is so scared as relates to Minneapolis is because there is such a. I mean, obviously I'm sure there's divisions, right. But overall there's such a unity around, like the thing that is happening is far more important than our differences that, like, I think they're not going to successfully split people in the general discourse. They'll do it a little bit. Right. But they're not gonna have nearly the traction they usually do. So I actually think that this point that you bring up is so vital, except of course for the fact that there's no time in history when anyone has ever come for one person in the morning and then a different person at night. I can't think of any examples of that. Right, that's sarcasm for.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

Yeah, that's my concern. And that's really the thing I want to highlight here is that even though they're sort of claiming, oh, this group is legitimate, this group is not legitimate. They've done this in a manner that's certainly setting them up to come for DSA later to come for the, you know, the extreme liberal groups and behave as though those liberal groups who are of course protesting in the, quote, right way, are actually engaged in violent, militant, revolutionary action.

[Margaret]

Right.

[Olive]

I think the veil on this has already kind of dropped here in the Twin Cities just how people have been charged with the church protesters facing these face act charges, super serious federal charges, and so many people facing federal 18 USC 111 charges, most of which have already been dropped or those cases closed. And the way that we've seen people show up in solidarity has been so cool. Just like your average liberal mom is, like, drop all the charges. There does feel like this sense of solidarity among people for being brave and trying to get out there and support their neighbors. That feels unique and makes it feel like it would be pretty hard for them to be really successful in pushing this narrative here.

[James Today]

I don't think you get to do like, anarchists brought the violence to this otherwise peaceful protest when you murdered a mother in the street and then you murdered someone else a few days later.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

And I think this is part of the thing that I'm finding interesting about this indictment is on the one hand, they're making these factual allegations where they're saying things like paragraph 70 says that ice was totally boxed in for half an hour and inconvenienced all morning. Right. It's like, okay. But then on the following page, it's very clear they're talking about, you know, how violent ICE is being. And it's very clear that the stakes are actually life or death and that all of the people who are in the streets inconveniencing ICE are doing so in defense of others. Like, and, and when I say defense of others, I mean in a legal sense, right? A self defense or defense of others. And they're not coming there and shooting ICE agents. They're coming, they are inconveniencing them. And so even the indictment itself, even from the government's own narration, you can see that what is at stake for the community in Minneapolis is true life or death stakes. And what is at stake for the ICE agents is that they are inconvenienced all morning.

[Questlove]

Yeah. This Black Music Month, the Questlove show celebrates the artists, innovators and cultural voices who continue to redefine music. We're sitting down with a groundbreaking country artist, Mickey Guyden.

[Akilah Hughes]

The way that the country music community accepted post Malone vs Beyonce vs Shaboozi like, those are very eye opening things.

[Questlove]

Hip hop visionary, Fat five Freddy, genre bending musical genius, Thundercat, and the always legendary revolutionary voice, Chuck D. Yeah, we changed tires, man. I had 18 jobs before this became my occupation, man. Okay, I wrote. I wrote Bum Rush the show as a messenger. From unforgettable stories to deep conversations about creativity, culture and legacy, these are the voices shaping the soundtrack of black music past, present, future. Listen to the Questlove show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Akilah Hughes]

Here's something that should not be as complicated as it is getting a racist statue removed. And here's something that should be a whole lot easier than it getting a new one put up in its place.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

As long as there's a politics of race in America, there's gonna be a politics of remembering the Civil War.

[Questlove]

To get to school, I had to go down Robert E. Lee Boulevard. Get to the grocery store, I had to go down Jefferson Davis Parkway.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

If you're an historian and you leave out half of what the history is, you're not doing your job.

[Akilah Hughes]

I'm Akilah Hughes and Rebel Spirit Season 2 goes deep on both of those things. The fights, the politics, the people who won, and my personal campaign to add something to the Kentucky State House that's actually worth the wall space.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

We are more, more than our bodies. We contain essence, we contain spirit. How do you represent that? They are just fueling a fire that is really catching.

[Akilah Hughes]

You'll see what I mean. Listen to Rebel Spirit Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Drink Champs Host]

June is Black Music Month, and on the Drink Champs podcast, we're speaking with the hottest names in the culture, like Swae Lee. Do you realize how legendary you are?

[Swae Lee]

I appreciate that I be seeing it, but I'm like, man, I still got like, so much more to do. Like Prince, he dropped like 30 albums. We dropped like five right now. That's the rate we got to be going.

[Margaret]

Yeah, that's a good attitude.

[Drink Champs Host]

You'll also hear stories from industry legends and hip hop pioneers like Fab five Freddy.

[Music Video Director]

I directed one of Nas's early videos.

[Drink Champs Host]

Which one?

[Music Video Director]

One Love.

[James Today]

Wow.

[Carlos King]

Yes.

[Music Video Director]

I literally filmed in his apartment in Queensbridge. His moms were still up in that apartment. Nas was just beginning to take off. His pops used to live near me in Harlem. His dad introduced him to a whole lot of, you know, conscious stuff, and he made a young prodigy.

[Drink Champs Host]

No matter the era, Drink Champs brings you the biggest names and the most unfiltered conversations. Listen to Drink champs from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Carlos King]

If you're watching the latest season of the Real Housewives of Atlanta, you already know there's a lot to break.

[Questlove]

Portia accusing Kelly of sleeping with a married man. They holding K. Michelle back from fighting. Drew Pinky has financial issues.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

I like the bougie style of Housewives show. I think it looks like it's gonna be interesting.

[Carlos King]

On the podcast Reality with the King I, Carlos King, recap the biggest moments from your favorite reality shows, including the Real Housewives franchise, the drama, the alliances and the tea everybody's 20 talking about. As an executive producer in reality television, I'm not just watching it. I understand the game. As somebody who creates shows, I'll even say this at the end of the day when people are at home, they want entertainment to hear this and more. Listen to Reality with the king on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[James Today]

One of the things that they spend a great deal of time talking about today indictment is OPSEC operational security for those who are not familiar and how that is evidence that they were bad people conspiring to do bad things. And very obviously this group's operational security has some kind of breach and we should talk about the time and place to discuss that breach. So if anyone would like to take a swing at either of those things, that'd be lovely.

[Margaret]

I mean, I would say that obviously we are. If you're reading someone's signal messages in an indictment, clearly the security did not fully succeed.

[James Today]

Yeah.

[Margaret]

But I would just say that actually a lot of the indictment seems to be people being frustrated at the success of the operational security. A lot of the indictment is like and then they kept vetting and therefore the implication is like, and therefore we didn't get to the next stage with our attempts.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

Yeah, I do think it's important to understand that operational security is not evidence of guilt. And playing who's the Cop in the Group chat is a game that everybody loses. And also not everything needs to be said on the Internet. I'm going to say it again

[James Today]

if

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

you missed it the first time I said it. Not everything needs to be said on the Internet.

[Margaret]

But what if I want to just explain to everyone that I'm really cool and radical? Isn't the best way to do it to just say that on the Internet?

[James Today]

If you have an Instagram account, hey,

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

remember that Tracy Chapman Song where she says talking about a revolution sounds like a whisper.

[James Today]

Yeah.

[Margaret]

But also had a really fast car.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

Yeah, great.

[James Today]

Sorry.

[Margaret]

I just really like Tracy Chapman. Yeah, no, that's a. That is a good point. And standing in the welfare line might be a better place to do it than online.

[James Today]

Maybe.

[Olive]

And we also are just seeing that the bulk of the evidence is extensive records of some supposedly vetted signal chat messages and highly detailed reports from supposedly vetted in person meetings, both gathered over the course of nearly half a year since January. And there's a lot of ways they could have gotten this information. Some of these events were public events. There's transcripts of a tour that some people did a speaking tour about resistance in Minneapolis. Those were open events to the public. Of course there's going to be feds there.

[James Today]

Yeah.

[Olive]

But as wiser people than me have always said, your signal messages, if you can see them on your phone and someone else gets your phone, they can also see them on your phone. So a lot of people were arrested here and had their phone seized as evidence. There's lots of ways that these messages could have been obtained. And what Mo is saying, I just think it's worth elaborating on that. It won't help anyone. What did you say about cop? Looking for the cop in the chat will never.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

Don't play. Who's the cop in the group chat?

[Olive]

Yeah, yeah.

[Margaret]

Everybody loses is a good way to describe that.

[James Today]

Yeah.

[Olive]

And just to make it explicit, I think it's because you could read this and be like, oh, my God, somebody snitched or there's an infiltrator. And I just think that's not clear.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

Yeah, we don't know. Yeah, we just don't know. And I. And I think the other thing that I would like to say is I'm looking at a lot of these text messages and they're not particularly evidence of unlawful conduct.

[Margaret]

No, no, they're really not.

[Swae Lee]

Right.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

And so I. I don't think the solution to that is to never talk to your friends or to never organize. I do think that it's important to remember that basically anything you say can and will be used against you. When I say to my clients, look, even when you're saying you're protesting your innocence, you know, when you're telling people publicly, I didn't do anything that can be used against you, you don't know what police and prosecutors are going to understand as evidence or what they're going to understand it as evidence of. That doesn't mean we don't talk to each other. It doesn't mean we self censor. It means we have the courage of our convictions.

[Margaret]

Yeah.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

And it means that we're thoughtful and circumspect about what we say.

[Olive]

Yeah.

[Margaret]

I think that's just like the most important point to all of this. We have the courage of our convictions and that doesn't mean we should be fools.

[James Today]

Right.

[Margaret]

Like, the indictment is much more concerned with that they built shields than it is about their conspiracy to kick police cars or whatever it is that they're accused of their overt acts.

[James Today]

Yeah.

[Margaret]

You know, and a lot of it is around the ideology of these people. And interestingly, it mentions anarchism or anarchists substantially more than it mentions antifa, with emphasis on the wrong syllable of course. And that's actually not new, that's actually really old in American history. But like, yeah, it, it's interesting to me that one of the cases that it looks like they're trying to build with these allegations is that all of these people identify as anarchists and that they're obviously not being accused of being an anarchist because that's not a crime. But that it certainly seems like they're attempting to say like this person identifies an anarchist, therefore they are more likely to have committed these other crimes or whatever. And I just think that that's worth pointing out that that is a thing that the state is heavily focused on. But for me, as an anarchist, this is about the kind of thing where you're like, well, the courage of my convictions. It's not a crime to believe that we should organize society in a bottom up horizontal structure.

[James Today]

And to add to that, the reason they're doing that is that they're relying on a popular misunderstanding of anarchism to mean a predilection for chaos and violence.

[Margaret]

Right, totally.

[James Today]

And the more that we can explain that anarchists mostly just want to make tea for you and be nice to you, then the further we can go to dispelling that. Like I like to define anarchism as building ways to take care of people that don't reinforce ways to control people,

[Margaret]

which includes guarding kindergartens. Right.

[James Today]

Yeah, yeah, there, there are many ways that we can do that, but the fewer people who, who have that misunderstanding that the harder it becomes to make that argument.

[Margaret]

Yeah.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

I think the point in this indictment that perfectly illustrates the fundamental misapprehension that the government has about what an anarchist is and what we're up to is the phrase the aggressive use of shields.

[James Today]

Yeah, that was what I was going to clip out as well.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

Because as you say, we're not food and bombs.

[Margaret]

Yeah, right.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

It's food, not bombs. We're feeding each other. We're protecting kindergartens where, you know, we're providing security for meetings. We're mostly, frankly, feeding each other.

[Margaret]

Yeah, yeah.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

Not always very well. Right.

[Olive]

Yeah.

[Margaret]

A little overemphasis on badly cooked eggplant.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

Too many human beings, possibly, but, you know, but we're doing our best out here. And maybe. I actually think that the idea that anarchists are people who engage in the aggressive use of shields is actually in some respects, really precise.

[James Today]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If these people all walk, it would be a great album title for someone. There has been a lot of reaction to several federal cases in the last 12 months. Right. Maybe 16, 18. God knows how long we've into this. But this is not that. This is not Prairieland, as we spoke about before. More than half the 18 USC cases in Minnesota have already been dropped. Can you maybe help situate this in a place that helps people who are struggling with the sky is falling feeling right now?

[Olive]

Well, I think one really nice thing is the arraignments are, I believe, still ongoing as we are speaking of the people who were raided and arrested this morning. And last I heard, all five whose cases had been called were ordered released with conditions of not talking to each other, with one exception for people who are roommates. But that's interesting and probably a whole other conversation, but that's a big deal that people were facing conspiracy charges, which are very serious federal charges, and were released today at their arraignments. I think it shows. It's an indication of where the courts are at. And also just these cases are taking place in this. In these cities where the whole world watched the federal government do absolute terror and people do beautiful human loving each other in all the ways that they could to try and keep people alive while federal agents killed people. So it's just the context that it is in, it's super different than rural Texas, you know, and even the facts that we are dealing with in this are just less hard. You know, there's not allegations that someone shot a cop, which is a harder narrative to overcome in public. The court of public opinion. And the allegations generally also seem even less serious than the recent indictment that came out in Michigan for the Palestine protesters. So I just think that's an interesting grounding thing. And on the other hand, we did recently see that with the Spokane three people convicted of conspiracy, which was. That's the second one after Prairieland. So while A lot of these cases around the country have been dropped. Not all of them have, but it's hard to imagine this being super successful given where it's taking place.

[Margaret]

And I think that when we look at Minneapolis and we're like, okay, Minneapolis was the. Or the Twin cities. I'm sorry, St. Paul. I'm so sorry. I keep accidentally doing that. St. Paul, you're also wonderful. And people have done so much work and they have been this, like, guiding light for a huge chunk of people living in the United States of America in this past year. Right. Like, looking how people have come together to defend their neighbors and themselves. And like, I think that it's important that we say that unity has to continue. And so it's like, the reason that I am optimistic is because of the actions that I saw in, in Minneapolis. Sorry, I didn't go to St. Paul, but, you know, the actions I saw in Minnesota. But that has to continue, like during court support, during, you know, so it's not like just a, oh, we've got this. Right. But instead by continuing to say, we, we are looking. This does matter to us. This matters to everybody. Yeah, I'm hoping that that kind of continues to, to influence things.

[Olive]

And I think we saw that today, the arraignments. The courtroom was packed, it was overflowing. So people were outside chanting. And that's when tear gas was deployed. And there was unprecedented. I mean, it just was unprecedented here at the federal courthouse to see that kind of force used. But there's tons of people outside. You know, this happened this morning and the community is not having it. So.

[Margaret]

Yeah, even though they're car kicking anarchists,

[James Today]

cars are living in fear.

[Maura Meltzer Cohen]

We need to remember to that. No action is over until the last person accused is home and free. Yeah, we have to keep doing court support. We have to do prisoner support. I am so relieved, I guess, to know that Minneapolis and St. Paul have such well developed legal infrastructure, including not only lawyers who have, you know, decades of experience fighting against the politically motivated abuse of state power against people, you know, on the basis of their First Amendment protected beliefs, but also legal workers and jail support and people who have really learned over the course of, not just this last winter, but, you know, through the course of many decades of movement struggles, how to deal with this kind of stuff. And I know that these particular, this particular group is in really good hands. It's not that this isn't a terrible situation, and it's not that it isn't going to be potentially devastating for the individuals who've been indicted. But the kind of solidarity that we have seen and that we saw this morning at the courthouse is really heartening to me.

[James Today]

Yeah. I guess I'll just say, like, I had the misfortune of having to listen to Gregory Bevino's interviews at the RE Migration Conference in Portugal as part of my job. And one of the things he said was that they surrendered to Minneapolis and St. Paul.

[Olive]

Right.

[James Today]

And they felt like they were defeated there. And I don't think it's a coincidence that this is happening right after they got their funding bill passed. Right. But very clearly, the people of the Twin Cities stood up to ICE and CBP and WON and ICE and CBP know that they are very upset about it, but that means you can do it again. And, like, this takes a different form when it comes in the form of court support. Right. It's different kind of struggle, but the way we confront it is the same, which is to say together. We saw people holding each other so close in the Twin Cities, and it was really beautiful amidst horrible, horrible shit. And I think that people can continue to do that and continue to, like, be this light the the rest of

[Olive]

the country to accept you as a wise mentor. Mo has said many times before, the punishment is the process. For anyone going through this. I hope you don't feel that however hard this is, is being undermined. It's incredibly difficult to go through this process. But staying grounded in the reality of where you are, the cases that have been dropped and the fact that there's not yet a conviction to minimize future year is a way of taking back power from the state, which they get to wield over us by doing things like this to freak us out and make us really scared. And we don't know if this will hold up in court yet, so let's keep our feet on the ground and hold each other close and try not to let them get us down more than more than they have to. Yeah,

[Akilah Hughes]

it could Happen here as production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts you can now find sources for. It Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.

[Olive]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Akilah Hughes]

Guaranteed Human.