LAST TUESDAY, FBI AGENTS arrested 18-year-old American Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud in a public parking lot in Richfield, Minnesota. He had just handed an undercover FBI informant $600 in cash. In return, according to a federal complaint, he got a duffel bag filled with an AK-47 rifle, four 30-round magazines, and about 200 rounds of ammunition. The man Mohamud believed to be an ISIS facilitator worked for the FBI. The weapon he is accused of acquiring for a massacre came from the government too.

Read more

President Donald Trump flooded the airwaves with long-held grievances that former President Barack Obama tapped his phones at Trump Tower months before the 2016 election.

“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory,” Trump posted on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”

Harmeet Dhillon echoed those same claims years before she was tapped to head the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.

“I think it’s evident already from the news reports that have come out that there was spying on the Trump campaign, and this vindicates the president,” Dhillon told Fox Business Network’s Charles Payne. “He’s been gas-lighted by the left. The leftist media and liberal politicians, for the last year and a half, after complaining his campaign was spied upon.”

President Trump then met with then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and former FBI Director Christopher Wray about the use of confidential informants in investigations into whether Moscow interfered with the 2016 election.

Stefan Halper was identified as the confidential FBI informant tasked with confirming whether Trump campaign officials—Carter Page, Sam Clovis, and George Papadopoulos—had connections to Moscow.

Trump and allies like Rep. Jim Jordan used this nugget as the basis to claim that there was a witch hunt where Democrats planted an informant into their campaign.

“If they did this, if there was a plant, if there was a spy, if there was an informant put in the other party’s campaign during the election, that is as wrong as it gets,” Rep. Jim Jordan told Fox News.

Despite his bitterness toward the intelligence community, Trump never took major steps to rein in its power.

Trump stood with House Speaker Mike Johnson to support extending Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act against a bipartisan group of progressive and libertarian lawmakers. This provision allows intelligence agencies to intercept texts and emails between Americans and foreign nationals outside the US without a warrant.

Trump issued an executive order that supposedly labels “ANTIFA” (short-hand for anti-facist) as a domestic terrorist organization. National Security Presidential Memo 7 (NSPM-7) now became the basis to place Trump's political opponents under constant surveillance.

NSPM-7 amplifies the subjective threat from the American-left by lumping in violent crimes the shooting of Charlie Kirk with minor ones like property damage or revealing personal details about ICE agents.

The memorandum gives the National Joint Terrorism Task Force, Department of the Treasure through its Terrorism and Financial Intelligence and the IRS a green light to conduct a massive spy campaign against organizers opposed to Trump's deportation campaign.

Federal informants infiltrated Minnesota’s resistance movement and spied on a activists and union members alike, according court filings released Thursday.

As a part of Operation Puppet Master, one informant, identified in court documents as “UCA 9833” learned about the Sunrise Movement meeting at the Minneapolis Central Library last winter.

UCA 9833 who went by the handle “peanutbutterjelly” on Signal attempted to lure organizers into criminal acts, according to court filings.

“During the Action meeting, it was made clear that the Sunrise Movement organization focused on “peaceful” protests. UCA 9833 spoke to [redacted] privately and informed him that he works construction and could build items that might assist other groups with more “direct-action” protests,” court filings read.

“The government is not supposed to be conducting surveillance of individuals or their communications without some kind of probable cause that they're engaging in illegal activity,” University of Minnesota First Amendment Scholar and Media Law Professor Jane E. Kirtley told KSTP.

Kirtley said Congress imposed limits on certain undercover tactics in the 1970s, including efforts to induce criminal conduct.

“When people are engaging in organizing and legitimate First Amendment activities, putting in covert agents to try to encourage them, incite them to engage in illegal activity is is simply wrong,” said Kirtley. “It's illegal.”

Kevin Riach, the defense attorney representing Minnesota 15 defendant Isaac Sant, described the breadth of the Trump administration's surveillance campaign.

“The agents surreptitiously recorded dozens of conversations with ordinary people who were simply exercising their First Amendment right to protest ICE’s lawless rampage in our state,” Riach wrote. “The agents gathered information about Minnesotans from law enforcement databases and internet searches, and created dossiers that are apparently now available agency-wide.”

The spying campaign went well beyond protests against Operation Metro Surge, Riach wrote. The surveillance extended to No Kings rally and Stop the War on Iran protests.

The one slide that HSI Agent Desmond Garcia presented to a grand jury has subsequently gone viral. It shows a web of organizations like MN5051, MAPE, Monarca, SEIU and MFE connected to Direct Action Minnesota (DAMN).

On June 16, federal prosecutors charges 15 Minnesotans, accusing them of conspiring against the federal government during Operation Metro Surge that left two Americans dead.

‘This is kind of a breakdown,” Garcia told a grand jury. “Like I mentioned earlier with members of DAMN being associated with other organizations through the course of the investigation this is just a snapshot of some of the other organizations that members are affiliated with that kind of comprise and make up DAMN.”

The slide has became both a badge of honor and an inside joke within the activist community.

The viral “kinda chic” trend, in which Instagram and TikTok users recast mundane or unconventional things as stylish or sophisticated, has fueled some of the jokes. One post read: “KINDA CHIC TO BE ON THE DAMN SLIDE.”

Another parodied the exhibit by adding logos for McDonald’s, Garfield and the Grateful Dead, among others, with the caption: “Looks like they’ve got it all figured out! 🤣✌️.”

The filings revealed greater insight into how NSPM-7 gives the enforcement agencies at the IRS and Treasury Department broad access to records under the pretense of “domestic terrorist financing.”

HSI obtained financial records that include member dues, retiree dues and strike payments from years of wire-transfers between the SEIU and its US Bank branch in Minneapolis.

HSI also requested financial records from the Communications Workers of America covering its donations and political action committee spending from 2023 through 2026, the filings say.

CWA’s finances included records involving the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, a Canadian union, according to the filings.

HSI subpoenaed Voices for Racial Justice’s PayPal and Venmo records, the filings say.

Court filings alleged that HSI violated privacy laws for not providing account holders advanced notice of an HSI probe.

“Among other problems, this use of administrative summons seems to violate the Right to Financial Privacy Act, which requires law enforcement to provide notice to the account holder if they are trying to obtain bank records via administrative subpoena,” court filings read. “Here, not only did HSI hide these inquiries from the account holders, it told responding financial institutions: ‘You are requested not to disclose the existence of this summons for an indefinite period of time. Any such disclosure will impede the investigation and thereby interfere with the enforcement of federal law.’”

Court filings also revealed that undercover agents used license-plate numbers from guests attending a social function at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Roseville, Minnesota, to identify them, link them to their social-media accounts, and compile dossiers that were then shared across DHS.

The court filings reveal that undercover DHS agents attended five church services (four in the Twin Cities and one in Michigan).

Brian Kaylor, President & Editor-in-Chief of Word&Way and Baptist minister, said that Homeland Security committed a severe overreach by sending undercover agents to spy on progressive activists inside churches.

“So the church in question is an Episcopal congregation in St. Paul,” Kaylor said. “Federal agents surveyed who was parked there & an undercover agent attended a meeting inside the church. This is such a violation of the church's rights.”

Talking Points Memo Josh Kovensky broke the story on Thursday August 13. Court filings revealed that one informant dropped their wire while sparring with a group called “Left Jab” at University Baptist Church

“The informant left the gym before realizing she had dropped it, and then returned to pick it up,” Kovensky posted on social media.

Kaylor replied to Kovensky saying a Feb. 13 injunction barred DHS from this type of surveillance that took place on May 27.

“This incident seems to raise more questions than the other church ones because University Baptist Church is covered by an injunction blocking warrantless DHS actions on church property,” Kaylor posted. “UBC is covered by an injunction issued Feb. 13 that bars DHS from warrantless actions inside American Baptist & Alliance churches. UBC is part of both & was specifically cited in injunction.”

“One of the things that is abundantly clear not only in guidance but is just principles as far as this investigation is, no one is ever investigated or looked at or even researched on for First Amendment protected activities,” Garcia told a grand jury. “Every single individual that we have investigated there is a criminal predicate to why we’re investigating them, either statements that they have made that are criminal to their actual participation in overt criminal acts.’

Garcia’s statement to the jury appeared at odds with what U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen told reporters when they pressed him for evidence supporting the conspiracy and assault charges against the 15 people indicted in connection with the Minnesota immigration protests.

“They all joined an agreement, a conspiracy, to interfere with lawful immigration enforcement operations. The conspiracy was not to interfere by their voice, but to do it by force,” Rosen said. “Whether or not they actually, at the end of the day, caused bodily harm is not the measure of whether or not they committed a serious federal crime.”

Civil liberties watchdogs condemned ICE’s domestic surveillance campaign calling for the Justice Department to drop charges against the Minnesota 15.

“The Department of Homeland Security’s investigation into Minnesota labor unions, a climate change organization, and other groups and activists who exercised their First Amendment rights in protesting ICE crackdowns is a disturbing, invasive, and utterly unjustifiable attack on freedom of expression and political dissent,” Defending Rights & Dissent posted on social media. “Defending Rights & Dissent calls for this investigation to be dropped immediately and strongly condemns all attempts by the Trump administration to intimidate ordinary Americans exercising their freedom of speech.”

Minneapolis Federation of Educators Local 59 President Marcia Howard called the surveillance campaign “politically motivated” in a statement to KSTP.

“Minneapolis educators worked in union to exercise our constitutional rights to peacefully protest Operation Metro Surge and other discriminatory policies of the president, and we will continue to do so,” Howard said.

Riach is requesting the court to force the government to disclose additional investigative records. He argues that the government has withheld investigative reports, communications and data from undercover agents’ phones and computers.

“They are missing, among other things, specific reports of investigation (“ROIs”) that the government has admitted withholding, claiming the ROIs are “unrelated” to this investigation even though they were created and filed within it,” Riach argued. “The disclosures omit any ROIs that document HSI’s domestic surveillance but were placed in other case files. They omit documents and communications related to the initiation and supervision of HSI’s undercover operations. And they omit downloads of the “undercover phones” and “undercover laptops” used by the undercover agents in this case to communicate with the defendants and others.”

We don't know how vast this surveillance campaign. Prosecutors estimate that it has roughly 16 terabytes of Signal data in its possession.

Prosecutors argued that they needed three months to turn over evidence to the Minnesota 15. U.S. District Judge David Schultz denied that request and asked prosecutors exactly how they have obtained this data.

“I’m inferring from everything I’ve heard that not every bit of evidence was necessarily gathered pursuant to warrant,” said Schultz. “What I want to make sure doesn’t happen is that something that is subsequently seized pursuant to warrant, then that becomes the narrative… if in fact it was seized earlier.”

Did the Justice Department charge activist before gathering the evidence needed to charge 15 peaceful protesters?

It's not just Signal chats. It's now bank records related to union workers dues. It’s sloppy agents leaving behind their wires. It's undercover cops trying to persuade law-abiding protesters to commit a crime.

It doesn't end with the Minnesota 15 either. One DHS agent asked a court to force T Mobile to turn over call records that belong to independent journalist Georgia Fort. Rep. Ilhan Omar penned a letter to HSI questioning why an undercover agent was stationed outside a town hall in Richfield, MN last week.

There is one case where a suspected plant mislead a group of angry counter-protesters to protect a January 6 sympathizer in Minnesota.

Fresh off a presidential pardon after being charged with assaulting police officers with a baseball bat during the January 6th Rally in D.C., conservative YouTuber Jake Lang planned on burning the Quran at Minneapolis City Hall on January 17.

Sean Benson, from Winona, MN arrived with Lang’s crew of a dozen when they met hundreds of counter protesters.

Lang and other January 6 rioters were punched, kicked and eventually chased out of downtown Minneapolis.

Later a half-dozen people chased Benson for two blocks. One person eventually caught up to him and punched him. Benson fell and hit his head. Protesters then helped him up.

“He’s one of us,” a suspected plant said.

“I’m with them,” said

“Is he?” another man asked. “How we know? Why get ran out earlier?”

“I don’t know but he's one of us,” the suspected plant said. “Trust me. He's been with us the whole time.”

Since November, activists in the Twin Cities were suspicious that federal informants have embedded themselves inside the resistance movement. Photos circulate on groups chats of suspected plants at the No Kings 3 Protests.

Lang posted a flyer with the N-Word for a rally on August 22, 2026, at 12:00 PM in downtown Minneapolis. It's now a given that some plants will be there misdirecting counter protesters and possibly gathering intel.

NSPM-7 is a legal directive that protects rogue agents by overstating the threats posed by Trump’s political opponents.

Trump has an obvious penchant for projection. A decade after FBI informant Stefan Halper wore a wire during his conversations with members of Trump’s 2016 campaign, HSI agents found themselves doing objectively worse things inside churches and libraries.

Trump and Dhillon show little appetite to reform this type of abuse.

The Trump administration’s goals are simple:

Scare people out of organizing so there are fewer people willing to do what Isaac Sant, Nekima Levy Armstrong, Cameron Kennedy, Treasure Cay Thoreson, William Kelly, and Ian Davis Austin and many others have done: challenge government power when it abuses its authority.

Subscribe now