A handful of Pro-Palestinian Code Pink protestors booked a reservation at a DC restaurant on September 9 after hearing a rumor that Donald Trump would be eating there that evening. The rumor turned out to be true, and they greeted him with chants of "Free Palestine" and "Trump is the Hitler of our time."
Trump did not take their one-minute interruption of his evening well. He responded by saying he would ask the Justice Department to investigate them for RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) violations. Watch the first minute of this video to see Trump's call for an investigation.
RICO charges are difficult to prove, and the RICO law was never intended to be used as a weapon to stop protests. It is hard to believe they will ever be found guilty of a RICO violation, but being accused of possibly violating RICO laws by the president is nothing to take lightly. RICO violations carry a maximum penalty of up to 20 years in prison and these protestors may face tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees if the Justice Department vigorously investigates them.
Trump has often accused those who protested against him of being paid protestors without presenting a shred of evidence to back his claims. Protesting is a core First Amendment right, and though I am not a lawyer, it seems to me that accepting money to protest does not diminish one's First Amendment right to protest. (For the record, I have attended anti-Trump protests and I have not been paid. Nor am I aware of anyone who has been.)
Perhaps Trump wasn't claiming that the Pro-Palestinian protesters were being paid directly. Perhaps he was claiming that all their expenses to attend a protest were being paid by someone who the Right portrays as sinister--someone like George Soros. Trump presented no evidence that the protestors' expenses were being paid by someone else, but let's pretend that he actually had the evidence to back his claim. How would that differ from Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA paying for more than 80 buses to transport protestors to D.C. on January 6?
In the wake of the Capitol riot, Charlie Kirk has deleted a tweet in which he discussed sending "80+ buses full of patriots to DC to fight for this president." https://t.co/2NRwdt257v pic.twitter.com/VqdRNWqMMZ
— Mikael Thalen (@MikaelThalen) January 9, 2021
Perhaps Trump meant to imply that Code Pink was being funded by Hamas or some other officially-designated terrorist organization. But there is no evidence that Code Pink is funded by Hamas, and Trump would be screaming about the ties between Hamas and Code Pink from the rooftop if such evidence existed.
Of course, who needs evidence if your goal is to maliciously prosecute those who are protesting your Administration? (And those who doubt the Trump Justice Department would maliciously prosecute anyone should read about their malicious prosecutions of former FBI Director James Comey and New York State Attorney General, Letitia James.) Is that really Trump's goal? It sure looks like it, but whether it is or not, his September 22 Executive Order designating Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization and his September 29 National Security Memorandum on Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence are custom-made to carry out that goal. Here is the meat of his anti-Antifa Executive order.
Section 1. Antifa as a Terrorist Threat. Antifa is a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law. It uses illegal means to organize and execute a campaign of violence and terrorism nationwide to accomplish these goals. This campaign involves coordinated efforts to obstruct enforcement of Federal laws through armed standoffs with law enforcement, organized riots, violent assaults on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other law enforcement officers, and routine doxing of and other threats against political figures and activists. Antifa recruits, trains, and radicalizes young Americans to engage in this violence and suppression of political activity, then employs elaborate means and mechanisms to shield the identities of its operatives, conceal its funding sources and operations in an effort to frustrate law enforcement, and recruit additional members. Individuals associated with and acting on behalf of Antifa further coordinate with other organizations and entities for the purpose of spreading, fomenting, and advancing political violence and suppressing lawful political speech. This organized effort designed to achieve policy objectives by coercion and intimidation is domestic terrorism.
Sec. 2. Designation as a Domestic Terrorist Organization. Because of the aforementioned pattern of political violence designed to suppress lawful political activity and obstruct the rule of law, I hereby designate Antifa as a “domestic terrorist organization.” All relevant executive departments and agencies shall utilize all applicable authorities to investigate, disrupt, and dismantle any and all illegal operations — especially those involving terrorist actions — conducted by Antifa or any person claiming to act on behalf of Antifa, or for which Antifa or any person claiming to act on behalf of Antifa provided material support, including necessary investigatory and prosecutorial actions against those who fund such operations.
The problem with this is that there is no Antifa organization. There is no Antifa president. There is no Antifa headquarters. There are no Antifa membership cards or entrance requirements. Robert Birsel wrote the best short description of Antifa that I have seen.
Antifa, which is short for "anti-fascist," in the United States is not a formal organization but rather a group of loosely affiliated people with no central leadership who say they are resisting those they deem fascist or white supremacist.
There have been some people who identify themselves as Antifa who have protested violently. But they represent only a small percent of the people who oppose Trump because they think he is a fascist. Most are smart enough to see that violence plays into Trump's hand. Some (like me) even urge others to pay attention to political scientist Erica Chenoweth as she explains in this video why nonviolent civil resistance. is the most effective way to oppose the Trump regime. Yet this executive order combined with Trump's Memorandum discussed below gives Trump the ability to make life hell for anyone who opposes him simply by claiming they are part of Antifa--whether they intend to be violent or not.
If Trump's Executive Order is a tool ripe for abuse, then his National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 is a tool ripe for abuse on steroids. The Memorandum starts out with a litany of left-wing violence without one mention of right-wing violence like the murders of Minnesota Democratic State Speaker of the House, Melissa Hortman and her husband, and without mention of the hundreds of death wishes and death threats by Trump supporters against judges and prosecutors who have tried to hold Trump and his associates accountable for their crimes. Indeed, you could search the Memorandum with a scanning electron microscope or with the James Webb Space Telescope and not find any evidence that Donald Trump is a stochastic terrorist (but you can find that evidence here and here.)
The Memorandum continues after its litany of left-wing violence:
This political violence is not a series of isolated incidents and does not emerge organically. Instead, it is a culmination of sophisticated, organized campaigns of targeted intimidation, radicalization, threats, and violence designed to silence opposing speech, limit political activity, change or direct policy outcomes, and prevent the functioning of a democratic society. A new law enforcement strategy that investigates all participants in these criminal and terroristic conspiracies — including the organized structures, networks, entities, organizations, funding sources, and predicate actions behind them — is required.
These campaigns often begin by isolating and dehumanizing specific targets to justify murder or other violent action against them. They do so through a variety of fora, including anonymous chat forums, in-person meetings, social media, and even educational institutions. These campaigns then escalate to organized doxing, where the private or identifying information of their targets (such as home addresses, phone numbers, or other personal information) is exposed to the public with the explicit intent of encouraging others to harass, intimidate, or violently assault them. As in the case of several ICE agents in Los Angeles being doxed, the goal of these campaigns can be to obstruct the operations of the Federal Government as well as aid and abet criminal activity the Federal Government is lawfully pursuing. These campaigns are coordinated and perpetrated by actors who have developed a comprehensive strategy to achieve specific policy goals through radicalization and violent intimidation.
I am so glad that Trump is now focusing his Justice Department on going after those who use social media to dehumanize others. He might point his Justice Department to this post by a politician who calls his opponents "Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin." Note that the word "vermin" is the type of dehumanizing language that Hitler used to prepare the German population to accept unspeakable atrocities.
To be fair, Trump never called Joe Biden a fascist, but he has said that Biden is controlled by Radical left fascists, Marxists, and Communists.
Trump's Memorandum continues (emphasis added):
There are common recurrent motivations and indicia uniting this pattern of violent and terroristic activities under the umbrella of self-described “anti-fascism.” These movements portray foundational American principles (e.g., support for law enforcement and border control) as “fascist” to justify and encourage acts of violent revolution. This “anti-fascist” lie has become the organizing rallying cry used by domestic terrorists to wage a violent assault against democratic institutions, constitutional rights, and fundamental American liberties. Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality. As described in the Order of September 22, 2025 (Designating Antifa as a Domestic Terrorist Organization), the groups and entities that perpetuate this extremism have created a movement that embraces and elevates violence to achieve policy outcomes, including justifying additional assassinations. For example, Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin engraved the bullets used in the murder with so-called “anti-fascist” rhetoric.
The United States requires a national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts. Through this comprehensive strategy, law enforcement will disband and uproot networks, entities, and organizations that promote organized violence, violent intimidation, conspiracies against rights, and other efforts to disrupt the functioning of a democratic society.
- There is no evidence so far that Charlie Kirk's murder can be tied to left-wing groups. Kirk's assassin was apparently motivated to murder him because he saw Kirk's hateful rhetoric against trans people as a threat to his trans lover. What Tyler Robinson (allegedly) did was horrific, and he should be punished for it (assuming he is found guilty). But there is no reason to use Kirk's tragic murder as an excuse to smear and crack down on the left.
- Trump is using Charlie Kirk's murder the way that Hitler used the Reichstag fire in 1933 to consolidate power and transform a democracy into an authoritarian regime.
- Trump's ire seems to be particularly focused on those who demonize law enforcement officials. Yet he pardoned or commuted the sentences of all those who beat the crap out of cops on January 6. In addition, Trump showed his deep respect for the rule of law with this post on Truth Social the day after Peter Navarro was found guilty of contempt of Congress
- Americans have every right to feel outraged at ICE's excessive force. And the First Amendment gives us the right to post videos documenting their excessive violence and expressing our outrage over it. Here are three of those videos. There are many more. If ICE and the border patrol want people to stop saying they are acting like the Gestapo, they should stop acting like the Gestapo.
“Her lawyer’s in the bathroom.”
Trump’s masked ICE Gestapo snatches a woman when her lawyer goes to the bathroom, then forcibly carries her into an elevator after she appears to faint. pic.twitter.com/4XbGDC73NQ— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) June 6, 2025
This next video shows the arrest of Rümeysa Öztürk, a PhD student at Tufts University.
Rümeysa Öztürk was here legally, and she broke no law. So why was she arrested? Trump officials decided to arrest her because she was a coauthor of a letter to The Tufts Daily asking the Tufts administration to honor--or at least discuss in good faith--the Tufts Senate resolutions urging Tufts to divest from companies that supported plausible Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza. The letter was respectful, and it contained no threat. It EASILY falls within the type of discourse that is protected by the First Amendment. Or should I say would EASILY get First Amendment protection if it had been written by an American citizen. But Öztürk is from Turkey, and she is here on an F-1 student visa. And the Trump Administration thinks that only American citizens get to be protected by the First Amendment.
Trump's theory was challenged in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts when the Middle East Study Association and unions representing college professors, grad students, and scholars sued the Trump Administration over its arrests and deportations of foreign nationals for their speech. Reagan-appointed Judge William Young made it abundantly clear that foreign nationals have the same First Amendment rights as U.S. citizens. But it is what he wrote about mask-wearing ICE agents that is of particular interest here.
And there’s the issue of masks. This Court has listened carefully to the reasons given by Öztürk’s captors for masking-up and has heard the same reasons advanced by the defendant Todd Lyons, Acting Director of ICE. It rejects this testimony as disingenuous, squalid and dishonorable. ICE goes masked for a single reason -- to terrorize Americans into quiescence. Small wonder ICE often seems to need our respected military to guard them as they go about implementing our immigration laws. It should be noted that our troops do not ordinarily wear masks. Can you imagine a masked marine? It is a matter of honor -- and honor still matters. To us, masks are associated with cowardly desperados and the despised Ku Klux Klan. In all our history we have never tolerated an armed masked secret police. Carrying on in this fashion, ICE brings indelible obloquy to this administration and everyone who works in it.
Will the Trump Administration consider Judge Young to be anti-American because he accused those ICE agents who wear masks of being terrorists? Is HE now a member of Antifa who should be investigated and crushed by Trump's Justice Department?
- Individuals and groups will be singled out for investigation if they are perceived by the Administration to be anti-American, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christian, with the goal being to disrupt violent crime before it happens. While this might seem like a good goal in theory, it is ripe for abuse by a tyrannical mad president. First, the terms themselves are ambiguous and could subject almost any individual or group on the left to intrusive investigation. What does it mean to be anti-Christian? What is to prevent a malicious right-wing government from calling Planned Parenthood anti-Christian in order to go after it and its donors? Could organizations pushing for Medicare for All be investigated as anti-capitalist? Does Trump consider those who have tried to hold him accountable for his crimes anti-American? Can we trust Trump not to paint Democrats as Anti-American in order to empower his Justice Department and his IRS to make their lives miserable?
These questions might not trouble those on the right. But consider this. Could a malicious left-wing government use this Memorandum to target those who are anti-Trans as being un-American and target YOU?
The rest of the memorandum lists the extensive steps that law enforcement agencies should take to disrupt and harass those individuals and organizations that the Administration perceives to be a potential threat. They are extensive and potentially oppressive if used by law enforcement authorities with malicious intent. Journalist Ken Klippenstein got statements from five prominent law firms analyzing how the memorandum could affect nonprofit organizations, their directors, their employees, and their donors. Here is one of those statements, and I urge you to visit his site to read the rest.
Elias Law Group, which describes itself as “the nation’s go-to law firm to fight back against voter suppression and election subversion,” warns that under NSPM-7, the government may interrogate individuals about “financial sponsorship” of protests or political activity. NSPM-7, the firm goes on to warn, “sends a troubling signal” that organizations opposing the administration may face investigations, punitive measures, or revocations of tax status.
“At a minimum, such politically motivated investigations would bog down targeted organizations with legal costs and compliance headaches all while detracting from their missions,” Elias concludes.
At root, NSPM-7 is not just about thwarting violent actors — it’s about chilling free speech and association. The directive empowers federal task forces to pursue not only organizations deemed in “support” of violence, but also funders, officers, employees, and indirect financial supporters, which means donors. Under the framework, even speech or advocacy currently considered protected could be swept into criminal exposure.
Update: 10/9/25: I deleted a video about an ICE raid in Chicago because its claims that ICE agents had zip-tied children and dragged naked children out of their apartment was based on only one eyewitness account. Snopes could neither verify or disprove that account, so I removed the video and replaced it with another one.
Update 10/10/25: Watch this this discussion by attorneys Brian Kabateck and Shant Karnikian about how National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 will be used to target left-leaning individuals and organizations for thought crimes. Karnikian points out that this is like the movie Minority Report where you could get arrested before you commit a crime just because you thought of committing a crime,
I also made a slight change to reflect the fact that New York State Attorney General Letitia James was indicted yesterday.
