Why the DOJ's Antifa Terrorism Convictions Threaten the First Amendment

The slippery slope toward labeling any president's opponents as organized terrorists

U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors performed a magic trick on Friday in a federal courtroom in Fort Worth, Texas. Before the jury’s eyes, they transformed a group of young protesters who were present when shots were fired last summer at an immigration building, into a domestic terrorist organization that DOJ insisted on calling “Antifa”. Eight of the nine defendants were convicted on charges of material support to terrorism – the first successful use of such charges against the nebulous cloud of Antifa that the Trump administration has confabulated into an ominous threat. The use of a statute, historically used to prosecute members of carefully designated international terrorist groups against an ill-defined, broad hodge-podge of politically left of center American activists – even those who engage in clearly criminal conduct, puts us on a slippery slope toward labeling any president’s ideological opponents as organized terrorists.