Politics and prosecutions

Back-to-back headlines highlighting the prosecution of left-leaning protestors has put some community radio and other nonprofit leaders on edge.

Recent media reports link the National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 to the harsh sentences given to Texas anti-ICE protestors (known as the Prairieland defendants) and to the fresh indictments of more anti-ICE activists in Minnesota. Thanks to both news stories and fundraising appeals, ‘NSPM-7’ could become a shorthand for political prosecutions.

However, there is additional context and other cases to watch.

Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10, 2025, the White House designated “antifa” as a terrorist organization on Sept. 22. Three days later, the White House issued the NSPM-7 executive order. Titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” the document orders the U.S. Department of Justice to prosecute “antifa” and left-wing activists and organizations.

While it’s hard to identify a specific group as “antifa”, anti-fascist movements are increasing across the country, particularly after the large-scale ICE raids last year—Los Angeles in June, Chicago in September, and Minneapolis beginning in December.

Legal analyses and pushback swiftly followed the executive order. In early October 2025, the Brennan Center for Justice issued a legal brief, saying

“Both the order and the memo are ungrounded in fact and law. Acting on them would violate free speech rights, potentially threatening any person or group holding any one of a broad array of disfavored views with investigation and prosecution.” — Brennan Center for Justice

The American Civil Liberties Union published an analysis, calling the document “chilling to read.” Their analysis outlines what the directive aims to do and what it cannot (re-write civil liberties laws). It also explains how state and local governments can protect local citizens and nonprofits essential to a community’s fabric.

A new story in The Conversation, whose editors work with experts to share what they know directly with readers, traces the international context for the executive order. The analysis highlights that designating a domestic group as a terroristic organization won’t fly. The judicial system has long held that such designations infringe on the First Amendment and the right to criticize the government.

Note: the ACLU analysis also links to an important resource road map on how nonprofits can prepare for and respond to an IRS audit.

A story in the Washington Post reports that members of the Minnesota group had long been “outspoken and radical,” which may have made it easier for the U.S. Department of Justice to paint them with the “antifa” label.

Similarly, Rolling Stone profiled armed “antifa” groups in North Texas, and later the Texas Observer highlighted how federal officials drew connections between those loose-knit “antifa” groups and the Prairieland case.

Yet, a new, in-depth look at the Prairieland case by Texas Monthly says the truth is messier than the government’s claims of “antifa”-fueled violence.

While the political prosecutions in North Texas and Minneapolis get the NSPM-7 label, the political prosecutions of journalists Don Lemon, Georgia Fort, Jerome Richardson and dozens of anti-ICE protestors who demonstrated in a St. Paul church won’t. Instead, the justice department deployed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994 to bring its indictments.

Still, arguments from the legal defenses against those so-called NSPM-7 cases share a common thread with defense arguments against other recent political prosecutions—bad faith applications of the law. Consider the case against protestors arrested outside an ICE facility in Chicago last September, known as the Broadview Six. A federal judge dismissed the charges in May after finding egregious conduct on the part of federal prosecutors during the grand jury process.

The defendants’ lawyers in that case have asked for special prosecutors to investigate for criminal misconduct, including probes into the communications between the White House and the justice department.

Communications Act of 1934, Sect. 326.

Nothing in this Act shall be understood or construed to give the Commission the power of censorship over the radio communications or signals transmitted by any radio station, and no regulation or condition shall be promulgated or fixed by the Commission which shall interfere with the right of free speech by means of radio communication.