This administration simply does not learn. The disastrous Operation Metro Surge produced an unprecedented city-wide resistance even in the face of two very public murders by ICE agents. The head of Metro was sent home to pasture, and then to retire. But the DOJ just can’t let it go. In an attempt to compound its defeat it has brought serious charges against 15 protesters, including a union carpenter and a professor of Buddhism at Macalester College.

The DOJ has had to drop half its charges already, and has a long history of having anti-protestor prosecutions fall apart. In this case, the DOJ makes broad sweeping references to protest acts but can’t seem to tie those acts to any of the defendants. DOJ has also been unable or unwilling to say whether anyone in ICE was in any way injured or impeded by the protest, despite the charges implying that is what happened. The profusion of videos taken during the protests seems to undercut the government’s case even before the defendants get to compel discovery.

This has all the hallmarks of a desperate attempt by a regime that is losing the PR war, is losing ever more public support, and is therefore grasping at straws. It doesn’t make them less dangerous, just (even) more contemptible.

(Taken from an email sent to me by Never Again Action.)