Federal Government Uses Case to “Investigate” Unions, Labor Activists

Defeat “Conspiracy” Frame-Up
Against the Minnesota 15

U.S. Marshalls fire pepper spray and throw flash bang grenades at protesters on June 16 outside federal court building where the Minnesota 15 were being held.  (Photo: Ben Hovland / MPR News)

On January 23, upwards of 75,000 people jammed the streets of Minneapolis to demand that the marauding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol get the hell out of Minnesota. That’s 10% of the entire population of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Called by union and community leaders, while it wasn’t a general strike, as many on the left claimed (no unions shut down production), it was a massive outpouring of resistance by the general population against the murderous occupying force of masked federal agents terrorizing immigrants and their defenders. For weeks on end, across the Twin Cities, thousands participated in rapid response networks tracking the movements of the immigrant snatchers. Many more joined in underground networks to supply food and necessities to their neighbors afraid to leave home.

A portion of the crowd of over 75,000 people marching in Minneapolis on 23 January. One tenth of the entire population of the Twin Cities came out. (Photo: David Guttenfelder / New York Times)

On June 16, the feds took their revenge. U.S. Attorney for Minnesota David Rosen released a 94-page indictment accusing 15 area activists of “conspiracy” to “forcibly challenge, block, or stop immigration raids, detentions. and deportations.” Good grief! The charges include “Solicitation to Commit a Crime of Violence,” “Interstate Threats,” “Interstate Stalking,” “Assault on a Federal Officer” and “Destruction of Government Property.” For “violence” it listed throwing “large ice blocks at law enforcement vehicles and into the road.” OMG, throwing ice at ICE! Were any vehicles damaged? No mention, so no. As for “assault on a federal officer,” it gave “brake-checking” while following (?) a government vehicle. Asked by reporters if any officer had been injured, “Mr. Rosen declined to say” (New York Times, 17 June). So again, no.

This is a phony “conspiracy” without any crimes committed. Which, of course, is why the capitalist rulers want conspiracy laws in the first place. In this case, the purpose was to tar opposition to Donald Trump’s mass deportations, carried out by the paramilitary thugs of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), with the brush of “antifa” (for antifascist) and to try to criminalize rapid response networks. But who they indicted are members of the Minnesota labor movement, immigrant defense groups and environmentalist organizations. As one of the defendants, Cameron Kennedy, said after being released, “It’s basically just alleging that we were conspiring to protest…. Essentially, if we’re guilty of [the charges], so is the entire city of Minneapolis” (StarTribune, 16 June). And that is why the Trumpers targeted the 15.

The feds’ legal assault is payback for Minnesotans’ massive resistance to Operation Metro Surge, an invasion of some 3,000 federal agents which was launched in December to target Somali immigrants in particular. Many of the 15 are union organizers indicted for their alleged activity on the January 23 “day of no work, no school, no shopping.” This prosecution is a threat to the right to protest and the democratic rights of all. It must be actively opposed not only by the labor, immigrant and community groups targeted, but by all those who are concerned to stop the U.S.’ headlong rush toward authoritarian, police-state rule. And as we have stressed, the issue here is power. This case will not be decided just in the courts. The Internationalist Group calls to defend the Minneapolis 15 with workers action!

After Murdering Good and Pretti, the Feds Are Gunning for Activists in Court

After being grabbed at daybreak on June 16, the defendants were hauled to the federal court building in St. Paul. In the holding cells, the jailed unionists began singing freedom songs, led by carpenter and folk singer/writer Emmett Doyle. They included “Solidarity Forever,” the Italian anti-fascist resistance anthem “Bella Ciao” and the Irish Republican prisoner support song “The Ones Behind the Wire” (the anti-ICE version). Outside, supporters swarmed the courthouse as cops unleashed pepper spray and fired flash-bang grenades at the crowd. When the 15 were arraigned on July 1, hundreds protested in downtown Minneapolis, including speakers from a number of unions. Defendant Treasure Thoreson, a member of the Minneapolis Federation of Educators, told the crowd, “The federal government is terrified of our ability to organize.”

Minnesota 15 defendant Treasure Thoreson of the Minneapolis Federation of Educators speaks to the rally of hundreds who came out to support the accused activists at July 1 arraignment in Minneapolis. Other unionists spoke as well, reflecting the fact that labor activists were particularly targeted by the feds. (Photo: Henry Creel)

U.S. Attorney Rosen said the charges were directed against “organized, lawless behavior,” a description that better fits the rampaging federal agents. He linked the indictments to Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), issued last September after the killing of Charlie Kirk, leader of the fascistic Turning Point USA group. That directive targets “anti-fascism,” “anti-capitalism” and hostility to “traditional American views on family, religion, and morality” as markers for “terrorism.” NSPM-7 establishes 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 [our emphasis] they result in violent political acts.”

That’s the key to U.S. v. Sant, the frame-up indictment against the Minnesota 15. The case was worked up by “Joint Task Force Vanguard,” set up “to investigate, prosecute, and disrupt those who engage in political violence and intimidation.” Federal prosecutors haven’t had much luck with their bogus charges of violence against federal agents. In Chicago, 29 of 33 cases of alleged assault on a federal officer resulted in dismissal, acquittal or pre-trial diversion; in Los Angeles, a third of similar cases were dismissed. In Minnesota as of early June, of 36 people facing federal assault or resistance charges, almost half (17) the cases were dismissed, and none have been convicted of felonies (Star/Tribune, 6 June).¹ So the feds wanted a “conspiracy” case in which they don’t have to prove that the accused actually did anything illegal.

The indictment has plenty of “committed to,” “advocate,” “promote,” “planning,” “dedicated to” and the like. But acts? Not so much. Mainly, it has defendants participating in rapid response groups, checking license plates and following the masked federal agents as they prowled the city in unmarked vehicles looking for prey. Federal judges have repeatedly upheld that observing and documenting the actions of “law enforcement” is constitutionally protected activity. What else? Well, there was a “hard blockade team” that dumped “debris (wood, leaf blowers, etc.)” as well as “vehicles, trailers, Czech hedgehogs”² and other items on the road. Leaf blowers? Gotta watch out for those Czech hedgehogs, though. And who knows, could beavers be heading down from the Boundary Waters to build dams on the Mississippi and flood the Whipple federal building?

And about those “large ice blocks” allegedly heaved at federal agents. Have you ever tried to throw a block of ice? They’re heavy, and very slippery. If any of the alleged conspirators is so good at it, maybe they should be signed up to QB for the Vikings, or the U of M Gophers.

Get real: these absurd accusations are coming from the federal government whose agent murdered Renee Good on January 7, shooting the mother of three in the head as she sat in her car watching their actions; whose agents on January 24 executed Alex Pretti, the Veterans Administration ICU nurse who came to the aid of a woman the Border Patrol thugs had pushed to the ground. They fired at least ten bullets into Pretti with their Glock pistols as they pinned him on the ground. No one has been charged for those crimes, while protesters are charged with transporting leaf blowers!

CBP agents pull a man from his car in Minneapolis on January 11, three days after the murder of Renee Good. (Photo: David Guttenfelder / New York Times)

The point of the charges is not to prosecute an allegedly criminal act but rather to convict people of “conspiring” to violate federal law. Ninety of the 94 pages of the indictment are devoted to the charge of impeding a federal officer (18 U.S.C. § 372), which all defendants are accused of. The other counts are potential throwaways if they can’t get a judge or jury to buy the flim-flam. Unlike the general conspiracy law (§ 371), under this provision no overt act is required to prove a conspiracy, only intent. In carrying out Trump’s NSPM-7 directive, prosecutors want to establish a precedent to make participation in a rapid response group or Signal chat focused on ICE into an illegal “conspiracy,” independent of what they do.

Moreover, the indictments came only a week before eight activists who protested outside the Prairieland, Texas ICE detention center were sentenced to a total of 450 years in prison on the bogus charge of “terrorism,” in the first NSPM-7 case to go to trial.

For Trump and the federal government, the mass resistance to their paramilitary police forces in Los Angeles, Chicago and particularly Minneapolis was a black eye. The case of the Minnesota 15 is precisely an attempt to outlaw the activities of tens of thousands of people, many not members of activist organizations, who blew whistles and used cellphone apps to warn their immigrant neighbors of imminent danger, it’s to go after teachers who patrolled schools and brought groceries to families in hiding, and to get back at community residents who went into the streets to oppose “Operation Metro Surge,” led by fascistic Border Patrol “commander-at-large” Gregory Bovino. The feds couldn’t stop the protests with military occupation, terror and bullets. So now they’re trying to achieve that in the courts.

Labor in the Crosshairs

The June 16 arrests of the Minnesota 15 are a direct threat to the labor movement in particular, as many union leaders have recognized. “Trade unionists active in worker assemblies are among those who were arrested,” Kieran Knutson, president of CWA Local 7250 in Minneapolis, told the Minnesota-based Workday Magazine (16 June). “The trade unionists I’ve known for years are stand-up people who believe in solidarity. They believe an injury to one is an injury to all.” Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou, president of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, told Workday:

“Working people from all walks of life across Minneapolis and its suburbs stepped up for their neighbors throughout Trump’s Operation Metro Surge. Tens of thousands of Minnesotans exercised their constitutional rights throughout this past winter…. Today’s federal indictments impacted several of our union members who used their voices alongside many other workers to call for an end to ICE’s so-far unaccountable violence.”

The St. Paul Federation of Educators, Local 28 of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), denounced the indictments and arrests, as did Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham:

“This past winter, the Trump administration tried to break Minnesotans’ solidarity and basic sense of decency by flooding our state with armed agents. They failed. Now they are trying to break us in the courtroom. They will fail again.”

IUPAT (Painters) Local 10 in Portland, OR  passed a resolution protesting the arrest of the Minnesota 15.
Click on image to enlarge.

Nationally as well, many unions have recognized the threat posed by prosecution of the Minnesota 15. A week before the indictments, the AFL-CIO held its quadrennial Constitutional Convention in Minneapolis, where it saluted the Minnesota labor movement for union members’ actions during Operation Metro Surge. The day after the indictments, on June 17, Local 10 of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades in Portland, Oregon, passed a resolution “Protesting Federal Targeting of Minneapolis and Community Activists.” The government’s legal assault is a threat, but could also be an opportunity to spark a long-overdue upsurge of working-class resistance to the bosses and their kept politicians. “Defend the Minnesota 15” should be on banners in union locals and community centers across the country.

Labor unionists should not forget how in the past, conspiracy laws were used to try to destroy the unions. The leaders of the 1895 Pullman strike, including socialist Eugene V. Debs, were charged under the 1890 Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which outlawed “every contract, combination or conspiracy, in restraint of trade.” In the 1909-10 “free speech fight” in Spokane, Washington, leaders of the syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or “Wobblies”), including William Z. Foster and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, were arrested on conspiracy charges. And, of course, the 1972 Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act has been used to go after unions, notably  the Teamsters in 1988, with the connivance of the Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU). Unlike the TDU, class-struggle unionists oppose all government interference in the unions.

Now with Trump in office, a prominent right-wing lawyer wants to revive the Sherman Act, saying “two unions effectively control the labor supply at 100% of domestic ports,” and “a single union has a stranglehold on package delivery.”³ The ILWU, ILA and Teamsters could be on the feds’ hit list. Revolutionary Marxists join many First Amendment lawyers in opposing conspiracy laws, and particularly their use against social movements. It should be noted that 18 U.S.C.§372, under which the Minnesota 15 are being charged, had its origin in the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, used against the racist violence of the KKK after the Civil War. Today, Trump, backed by actual fascists, is using this law to try to jail anti-racist union and community activists, while his private militia of ICE and Border Patrol agents sows terror as the KKK did a century and a half ago.

The accusations in the Minnesota 15 case are false to the core and constitute a deadly threat to immigrants and the entire labor movement, as well as to democratic rights overall. In the days leading up to January 23, supporters of the Internationalist Group were actove in the Twin Cities, participating in protests and selling hundreds of copies of The Internationalist calling to “Abort Trump’s Police State,” and of the Revolutionary Internationalist Youth newspaper, Revolution, headlined, “For Mass Worker/Student Action to Stop Raids and Deportations.” We distributed nearly 1,000 copies of a four-page leaflet with a program for action, “Twin Cities: For a Real General Strike to Drive Out ICE Gestapo!” The Democratic Party and courts won’t stop mass deportations, we stressed, we must “Bring Out Workers Power!”

The IG and Class Struggle Education Workers, as well as Labor Committee to Defend Immigrants activists, also participated in the Workers Assemblies in Minneapolis that the federal government wants to criminalize. Today we urge class-conscious workers everywhere to take up the defense of the Minnesota 15. Solidarity messages, even from arch-conservative business unionists, are important, but much more is needed. Defending the Minneapolis 15 against the federal government will be expensive and a legal defense fund has been established. As of this writing, more than $390,000 has been raised, including $50,000 from National Nurses United. The Internationalist Group contributed $1,000 and urges all supporters of immigrants and the labor movement to donate. Contributions for legal defense should be sent to:https://chuffed.org/project/186570-minnesota-15-legal-defense-fund.

The defense of immigrants, leftists, transgender people and all those being targeted today depends, not on any law or court, but rather on the independent mobilization of the working class and oppressed people to stop escalating police-state repression, Drop the charges against the Minneapolis 15! Free the Prairieland 22! ■

“Operation Puppet Master”

HSI list of organizations in supposed “conspiracy”: (clockwise, from top) Monarca, MN 50501, MN ICE Watch, Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, Minneapolis Federation of Educators Local 59, Left Jab, Grease Pit, Democratic Socialists of America, Black Cat Workers Collective, AFL-CIO, Workers Solidarity Circle, Whipple Watch, Vets for Peace, Socialist Alternative, Showing Up for Racial Justice, SEIU 26, Red Pine Revolutionary Collective, Ray Rainbolt Memorial Gun Club. (click on photo to view enlarged version)

The alleged conspiracy ascribed to the Minnesota 15 was supposedly orchestrated by Direct Action Minnesota (DAMN) and “sub-groups, such as the Black Cat Worker’s Collective (‘BCWC’), Ray Rainbolt Memorial Shooting Club, and other organizations,” in the words of the indictment. The BCWC is an anarcho-syndicalist collective, with members in several unions. Ray Rainbolt was the Sioux Nation trucker and Trotskyist who led the Teamsters Local 574 Union Defense Guard, set up after the victorious 1934 Minneapolis Teamster strike, that drilled rifle-bearing Teamsters to fend off the fascist Silver Shirts brought in by the bosses. But who are the “other organizations” cited? This was revealed two months later, when the defendants’ lawyers released a diagram prepared by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

It turns out that the organizations being investigated were unions, including the Minnesota AFL-CIO labor federation, Communications Workers of America (CWA), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Minneapolis Federation of Educators (MFE) and Minnesota Association of Professional Employees (MAPE); political groups, such as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Socialist Alternative (SAlt); the Democratic Party front group 50501; the environmentalist Sunrise Movement;  rapid response groups, like MN ICE Watch, Whipple Watch and  the clergy-initiated community group Monarca; Voices for Racial Justice, and the mixed martial arts group Left Jab,⁴ among others. This “investigation” was part of a DHS “Operation Puppet Master,” ordered by U.S. Assistant Deputy Attorney General Aakash Singh.

The August 13 defense “discovery” motion in the Minneapolis 15 case, which demands that the government turn over all its “reports of investigations” (ROIs), revealed that the massive spying operation was opened four days after Alex Pretti was murdered. Material already released shows how federal undercover agents (“UCAs”) posing as protesters “surveilled community meetings at churches, parks, libraries, union halls, schools and restaurants,” including one as far afield as Hunter College in New York City. “UCAs actively participated in organizing and directing the groups they were surveilling, at times working to entice people into discussing or committing crimes,” it added, as for example when UCA 9833 said he was “in construction” and offered to build items for “more ‘direct action’ protests.”

Under “Operation Puppet Master,” the feds have used the “investigation” of the Minnesota 15 to comb through the financial records of the SEIU and CWA. The HSI’s “sneak peek into SEIU’s finances,” the defense motion said, found only “various types of debits and credits to include annuity payments, strike payments, strike supplies, investments, union member dues, retiree dues, medical expenses, and pension fund expenses” (from a May 4 ROI).  The HSI also dug into the CWA’s political donations and spending during 2023-26. In their surreptitious fishing expedition, the feds clearly violated the federal Right to Financial Privacy Act, which requires that account holders be informed of any investigation; and they ordered the financial institutions “not to disclose the existence of this summons for an indefinite period of time.”

The political motivation behind this political prosecution was given by Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and Homeland Security advisor, at the July 16 United States Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism, which brought together high-level government and police officials from 66 countries. In his remarks, quoted in the Minnesota 15 defense motion, the fascistic Trump advisor Miller said of “these Radical Leftists, these terrorists” targeted by President Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 that was the basis for the prosecution of the Minnesota 15:

“The leftist is fundamentally motivated by envy, by hatred, by jealousy. The leftist looks at what is beautiful and what is good and what is natural and is filled with envy and hatred. The leftist looks at a perfect family with a perfect life and a perfect job and perfect kids that goes to church every Sunday and is filled with a feeling of inadequacy and jealousy, and they covet. And they turn those emotions ultimately into a desire to subjugate, to oppress, and to inflict pain and suffering.”

This garbage reads like something straight out of Hitler’s Mein Kampf,

Miller adds that “our institutions have grown too soft and too cowardly to be able to defend themselves,” and more specifically, “Our legal systems don’t work. Our jury trials don’t work.” So if the MAGA regime is unable to obtain a conviction in the Minnesota 15 case, they will try other ways to silence opposition to their would-be police-state regime. This underscores the urgency of mobilizing workers action to defend the Minnesota 15. ■

To contact the Internationalist Group and the League for the Fourth International, send e-mail to: internationalistgroup@msn.com

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