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DOJ Continues to Let DHS Pick and Choose Screen Shots Pertaining to Their Assaults

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There’s a general reason and specific reasons why people should care about Bill Essayli’s response to David Huerta’s motion to compel the government to turn over metadata associated with the evidence obtained against him.

Generally, DHS has permitted — encouraged, seemingly — DHS officers to use their own personal phones and to use Signal. And whether officers are using their own or government phones, DHS ditched its archiving software last year; it is relying on officers’ taking screen caps of relevant communications.

The Department of Homeland Security has stopped using software that automatically captured text messages and saved trails of communication between officials, according to sworn court statements filed this week.

Instead, the agency began in April to require officials to manually take screenshots of their messages to comply with federal records laws, citing cybersecurity concerns with the autosave software.

[snip]

The policy expects officials to first take screenshots of the text messages on their work phones, send it to their work email, download it on their work computers and then run a program that would recognize the text to store it in searchable formats, according to the department’s guidance submitted to the court.

Under the Federal Records Act, government agencies are required to preserve all documentation that officials and federal workers produce while executing their duties. They have to make federal records available to the public under the Freedom of Information Act unless they fall under certain exemptions.

And we’ve seen AUSAs rely on officers themselves to review their own devices for communications covered by discovery.

In the LaMonica McIver case, for example, officers didn’t turn over exculpatory texts until Judge Jamel Semper ordered supplemental discovery.

It wasn’t until November 26 — almost two weeks after Judge Jamel Semper ruled on McIver’s immunity bid —  that DOJ turned over texts copying this video, observing that it looked bad.

5 The Spotlight News video came to light during the course of supplemental briefing only because it was referenced in a May 9, 2025, text message that the government finally turned over on November 26, 2025. HSI special agents exchanged the video in that May 9 conversation, where the agents also acknowledged that the evidence in the video was “bad.” Ex. Y at 2-3. The prosecution team therefore clearly knew about the text messages (and thus the video) when disclosures were due in July.

McIver’s lawyer, Paul Fishman, says he will address this delayed discovery in a follow-up letter.

Inexplicable delays in the government’s discovery productions mean that the record continues to be developed.1

1 Congresswoman McIver will detail these shortcomings in a forthcoming letter to the Court.

But the implication of this is clear.

DOJ was never going to turn over these discussions — conducted on Signal — until Judge Semper ordered this supplemental briefing. They were sitting on evidence that shows that before DHS first started calling McIver’s actions an assault on May 10 (McIver had to ask to have these Tweets taken down, but the timeline is in her motion to do so), they had shared video noting that their own actions looked bad.

Consider how this policy would work in the case of Jonathan Ross’ killing of Renee Good. Given that Ross’ video of the killing was released unofficially, it seems likely he was using his own phone that day. Particularly given the impunity with which Pam Bondi has treated him so far, there’s no reason to believe he’d retain anything incriminating himself, much less people like Greg Bovino or Stephen Miller.

It would take someone actually seizing his phone to see if there are incriminating details about his own motives.

That’s what David Huerta is asking for: that DOJ provide the metadata associated with both the videos and texts messages surrounding the day.

The metadata Mr. Huerta requests here—for the agents’ text messages already produced in this case,10 and for the photos and videos taken of the scene on June 6 and already produced—is critical and material to his ability to adequately prepare for his defense in this case. It is also relevant to understanding the sequence of events that occurred on June 6, both the actions of protestors and Mr. Huerta at the scene (e.g., shown in photographs and video recordings) and the agents’ statements to one another and activities that day as reflected in the text messages. Lastly, the metadata information affiliated with iPhone photos and messages is routinely stored in the ordinary course for such ESI, and would be straightforward to extract from the agents’ cellphones or devices. Moreover, producing the photos and videos in a native, load-ready format along with a corresponding index is routinely done in criminal cases by the Department of Justice.

10 Because the agents’ text messages and the photos and videos have already been collected by the government in this case and produced to the defense, there can be no dispute about the government’s “possession, custody, or control” of that material and/or those devices, as the government already had, and likely continues to have, access to them in preparing their discovery productions.

Even if these witnesses — HSI Supervisory Agent Ryan Ribner and Undercover Officer Jeremy Crossen — were reliable, this would be a reasonable ask. While the bulk of the video in discovery is unavailable publicly, the texts are difficult to unpack, and because Ribner “wrote the arrest report … from memory,” there are time discrepancies between the narrative he tells in the arrest report and the texts, to say nothing of additional discrepancies in Crossen’s countersurveillance report.

But these witnesses are not reliable. Crossen, for example, told interviewers that he was using his personal phone because his government phone “was not working at the time of the incident.”

TFO Crossen stated he used his personal phone to document the events which was turned over to an HSI Computer Forensics Agent (CFA) to download and preserve evidence.

TFO Crossen stated his government issued phone was not working at the time of the incident.

Except his texts show he switched phones during the incident (his testimony is so inconsistent I actually misunderstood whose phone this was on first read).

Plus, he told Ribner had had a couple hundred videos. The discovery includes far short of that.

And that’s just one reason to question Crossen’s candor when he told investigators, “he did not alter or delete any videos.” There are other holes in what appears in exhibits (this may be available in videos): he told investigators that somebody — I think he means protestors — called out “he’s a union member,” about Huerta, which is … not how I’d expect people in left-leaning politics to describe a senior SEIU official. The specific description of Huerta would go to the denials of everyone involved that they assaulted Huerta because he is a senior union official.

And Crossen described not filming the most important footage for this case, purportedly showing Huerta standing right in front of the van, rather than to its side, where the DHS goons assaulted him.

TFO Crossen recalled that immediately before 0:10 seconds before starting  video 2790, he observed HUERTA standing in front of the van, closer to the center of the van. He stated that he did not film that particular moment because there were a lot of distractions “from persistent instigators” including HUERTA.

And that’s why Essayli’s argument — that DOJ can provide Electronically Stored Information in whatever format they want so long as it maintains the data integrity — falls short.

In relevant part, the ESI protocol recommends that (1) after conferral, any format selected for producing discovery should maintain the ESI’s integrity, allow for reasonable usability, and reasonably limit costs, and, if possible, conform to industry standards for the format;

Crossen’s testimony, along with problems in the testimony of others, raises more than enough reason to question the integrity of the data as provided. A Cellebrite extraction, which is what Huerta is asking for, would show whether there were gaps in production.

Essayli is also citing in poor faith to misrepresent Huerta’s argument (and in his motion to dismiss, switched between PDF and document page numbers, further obscuring his references). He repeatedly claims Huerta just wants DOJ to create a searchable index.

To the extent defendant is requesting the government create an index of the metadata in a searchable format, see Dkt. 58 at 3:1-5, that request is beyond the government’s discovery obligations.

[snip]

Instead, defendant’s true complaint is that the government has not created a searchable index of the photos’ and videos’ metadata. (Dkt. 58 at 3.)

But the cited passage (this is on document page 2) reveals they’re asking for far more than that.

The screenshot PDF images of the messages do not contain any metadata affiliated with the messages or the source iPhones, and no corresponding index was provided to defense counsel with this information. Notably, the phone numbers belonging to the sender(s) and recipient(s) of the messages, or even the iPhone contact cards, were not included in the production or visible in the screenshots. Nor do the iMessage screenshots contain a timestamp for each message; while some messages do have a timestamp at the top (sometimes owing to a gap in time), many of the messages contain no timestamp whatsoever.6 Additionally, because of the nature of the initial production (individual PDFs named only by “IMG” file number), there is no way in which to tell who the owner and custodian (e.g., which agent) is of each set of messages and each phone. Additionally, due to the screenshot nature of the messages, certain messages are cut off and the messages were not all provided in chronological order to Mr. Huerta. Finally, the iMessage screenshots do not contain any geolocation or coordinate information, if any is available, as is often part of cellphone metadata or any “native” file.

There are a whole bunch of reasons this is necessary to reconstruct what happened.

But in DHS’ new parallel evidentiary role, it’s not clear whether Huerta — or any of the other people accused of assault using evidence from officers’ personal cell phones — will have access to that.

Chekhov’s Back Door Gate Appears in the David Huerta Assault Saga

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F[ucking] A[sshole] Bill Essayli submitted his response to David Huerta’s motion to dismiss his information (see this post for an explanation of why I’m calling Essayli, “F[ucking] A[sshole]”).

Here’s a summary of the argument: Huerta intentionally blocked the only available entrance of the search (but not arrest) location, he did this via means other than standing in front of a van, and encouraged others to do so, which led (after Ryan Ribner assaulted Huerta) LAPD to declare a riot.

During the execution of a search warrant, defendant intentionally blocked the only available entrance of the Warrant Location. He did this by sitting down and walking in circles directly in front of the entrance of the Warrant Location, making it impossible for any law enforcement vehicles to enter or exit, without defendant moving. In addition, he also successfully encouraged other individuals to join him in blocking the entrance of the Warrant Location in the same manner eventually contributing to LAPD declaring a riot at the Warrant Location. As defendant concedes in the Motion, defendant was told explicitly he “shouldn’t block or impede the [law enforcement vehicle] that would be arriving.” (Dkt. 55 at 14.)

Even this passage conflates two things Huerta did — sit, and picket, before the van showed up — with blocking it.

But the most interesting part of the passage is that word “available,” which is doing a lot of work. Along with the filing, DOJ submitted seven exhibits: three compilations of video (filed manually, so we don’t get them), and the interview reports from HSI Special Agent J Smith (who seems to have overseen the search), a second interview with the van driver, Brian Gonzalez, an interview with HSI Special Agent Andre Lemon, who helped Gonzalez change a tire, and a picture of the tire that got slashed while or shortly after Huerta was being assaulted. These late interviews appear to be an attempt to salvage the case with witnesses besides Ryan Ribner and Carey Crook, the guys who assaulted Huerta. DOJ is spinning a new story that because of what happened with Huerta — that is, because Ribner, especially, assaulted the SEIU CA President — HSI had to flee the site of the search hours earlier than they otherwise would have, which limited the number of undocumented workers they could detain, which wasn’t supposed to be the point of the search.

As Lemon described, they fled out a back gate.

SA Lamon stated they loaded the vehicle with “Some of the detainees and snuck out of the back gate”.

You see, from the moment I read this line in Ribner’s affidavit supporting the arrest warrant, I was pretty sure there was another gate ready to open, just like Chekov’s gun, a plot point that must be resolved.

Our trusty cyber expert also suggests that the van entering the gate of the facility — the predicate for making Huerta move and therefore the predicate to tackling him, injuring him, and then arresting him — may not, after all, be the only entrance. He describes that “as far as I was aware,” it was.

As far as I was aware, this gate was the only location through which vehicles could enter or exit the premises.

I wonder whether his awareness has changed over the weekend.

Ribner said a bit more about Chekov’s gate in the arrest report (and also revealed that he left in a caravan via “the secondary gate,” which he did not otherwise explain).

ERO SDDO C C approached SSA Ribner to discuss a plan to safely escort an ERO USG vehicle into the facility. SSA Ribner provided the same information to SDDO C as he did to the DEA agents regarding subjects potentially impeding/blocking agents and USG vehicles. SDDO Cr asked if there was another entrance/exit to the facility; SSA Ribner related that he did not have knowledge of a secondary entrance/exit. SSA Ribner related that agents would need to go outside of the gate and encircle the sides of the van to make sure it isn’t blocked and/or damaged. SDDO C asked how agents would move the pickup truck [playing loud music] from the driveway. SSA Ribner advised that he would verbally request the driver to move the truck. [my emphasis]

DOJ didn’t bother to ask Crook whether he knew of a second gate last August, as it became clear neither his nor Ribner’s testimony was credible. But his interview report describes that Crook, “recalled himself and GS Ribner coming up with a plan for the main gate to slightly open to allow the van to enter the property and then close it after the van entered,” just before he made a claim — that Huerta had “straddle[d] the hood of the van” and “ma[de] his body an X,” a claim no other witnesses nor the video corroborated.

The “main gate.”

You only call something a main gate if you know there’s another.

Brian Gonzalez — the guy who drove the van and all of a sudden remembered David Huerta being close to it after he got a permanent job at CBP and had a follow-up call, probably the guy DOJ hopes will be their star witness given problems with calling Ribner or Crook to the stand –was not asked about any gates in his first interview (or the follow-up, where his memory about Huerta evolved).

But in his interview last week, he was asked about the gate.

Before I explain what he said, note that the F[ucking] A[sshole] Bill Essayli confessed in his response that earlier — right up until the moment David Huerta arrived, Essayli seems to suggest — DHS had no problem getting cars and vans through the entrance where protestors were.

Shortly thereafter, between 10:30 a.m. and 11:45 a.m. demonstrators began to show up at the Warrant Location and congregated near the entrance to the front gate. During this initial period, before defendant arrived, the demonstrators did not block the driveway and repeatedly allowed vehicles to enter and exit the Warrant Location through the front gate. (Ex. 1 at 7:30-7:35; 8:16-8:27; Ex. 2 at 4:25-5:25, 7:49-7:53, 8:22-8:26, 9:45-9:48, 11:47-11:58.)

There was a white van captured in one of Jeremy Crossen’s photos, showing a time stamp of 11:10 (it’s possible the van in one or both of these pictures is the one driven by Gonazalez; per Google his drop-off at the Federal Building was a 9-minute drive away).

Crossen’s countersurveillance report describes what may be this van — at around that time, a van and a beige car were able to pass through the gate because someone asked nicely for the protestors to move and they complied.

At approximately 11:25 a.m., The southwest gate of the business opened, and a beige Toyota sedan and a white ICE ERO transport van approached the south apron of the driveway. As the gate opened, UHM-1 ran from where he was standing, just east of the apron. UHM-1 initially stood center driveway of the apron, blocking the egress of the car and van while filming. An unidentified agent standing just north of the gate ordered UHM-1 to move and he subsequently complied.

Half an hour later, per Crossen’s report, a mini-convoy came up at a time when Huerta was legitimately in front of the gate, if we can believe any of these reports (we can’t).

At approximately 11:54 a.m., A black Government Jeep Grand Cherokee, along with several other government vehicles, approached the apron of the driveway from E. 15 Street. The vehicle th remained stopped as both the gate was closed and standing protesters were blocking the apron of the driveway, preventing the vehicle from pulling closer to the south gate for entry into the business. At this time, TFO Crossen observed HUERTA, LENEHAN, UHF-8 and UHM-7 sit down on the ground, approximately two to four feet from the closed gate. TFO Crossen both audibly heard and video recording HUERTA motioning with his left hand with an “enviting motion” to the crowd around him, yelling “Sit down! Sit Down!” repeatedly. HSI Supervisory Special Agent (SSA) Ryan Ribner approached the closed gate from the other side and informed the seated protesters they were impeding the vehicles and needed to move. Upon hearing this, HUERTA, while still seated, “scooted” forward, where he was now seated on his knees, right against the gate. HUERTA ignored SSA Ribner’s orders to move because they were impeding law enforcement vehicles attempting to enter the business. HUERTA yelled to SSA Ribner, “What are you doing! What are you doing! I can’t hear you through your fucking mask! How are you keeping me safe by doing this!” SSA Ribner, calmly again admonished HUERTA that he was impeding law enforcement vehicles from entering.

Those vehicles do not appear in Ribner’s report, as far as I can tell, at all.

There’s no resolution to what happened to those vehicles, though. They disappear from the narrative by the time the van driven by Gonzalez shows up, which is when seven people move to block the van, and oh by the way, so does David Huerta, added as an afterthought in Crossen’s report.

At approximately 12:15 p.m., a white Law enforcement van pulls up to the apron of the driveway, just south of the main south gate with its siren and emergency lights activated. As the vehicle pulled up, agents opened the south gate, and several agents walked from inside the property compound to the apron of the driveway to assist with moving protestors so the emergency vehicle could gain entrance. As most of the crowd moved for the loud audible siren and emergency police lights, LENEHAN, GARDUNO, CUERVO, ALTAMIRANO, UHM-7, and an unidentified Hispanic female, later identified as Edith DIAZ (DOB: /1977; COC UNK) and UHM-8, who was now out of his unoccupied vehicle, which was playing loud music and blocking the apron, ran closer to and in front of the law enforcement vehicle to block it.. HUERTA also moved toward the emergency van with activated lights and siren and stood approximately two feet from the front bumper, directly in front of it, ignoring the emergency lights, activated siren and ignoring agents orders to move.

With all that in mind — with the way that Ribner stages confrontation over the expected appearance of Gonzalez’ van — here’s what Gonzalez said in his interview last week:

Gonzalez stated that he called Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), Supervisory Detention and Deportation Officer (SDDO) Carey Crook when he was about a block away from the location.

Gonzalez stated that he drove past the crowd at the front gate and asked SDDO Crook if he could come through the back.

Gonzalez stated that SDDO Crook informed him that the back gate was locked and they didn’t have the keys to the lock.

At noon, when Ribner was staging a confrontation with the people he believed were “vicious, horrible people,” he didn’t know there was a second gate.

But somehow Gonzalez, who found out just that morning he’d be doing this drive and had already done one pick-up that day, knew there was one. Not only Gonzalez knew of it. But Crook — whom Ribner claims asked him, Ribner, if there were a second gate — not only knew of one, but knew it was locked.

When they needed to get by protestors before Ribner had assaulted David Huerta, they asked nicely and everyone complied.

When they needed to get by protestors after Ribner had assaulted David Huerta, they knew exactly how to do that: go out the back door gate, which it turns out they had keys to.

Timeline

June 6: Arrest

9:00 AM: HSI task force officer (and Inglewood cop) Jeremy Crossen arrives under cover

9:20: Agents start executing search

9:57: Crossen interacts with Asian woman

10:26: Crossen interacts w/Hispanic protestor, claims he is monitoring the police

10:33: Crossen texts Ribner

11:07: Crossen sees pick-up without plates whose Hispanic driver films

11:19: Crossen describes a Hispanic woman with a neck gaiter; his report provides background on a Kids of Immigrants sweatshirt she wears; start time of alleged criminal conduct

11:25: A sedan enters the gate; after an agent instructs those filming it to step away, they do; Crossen texts Ribner,

 

11:31: A Hispanic woman whom Crossen IDs by name shows up, makes phone calls

11:36: Crossen describes a white woman by name, describes that she masked as the crowd grew

11:37: Crossen describes the Hispanic leader of ACCE Action, Council Member Jose Delgado, show up, make calls

11:49: Crossen claims he sees Huerta walk up

11:51: A white woman from Tenants Union starts yelling obscenities

11:53: Ribner instructs Crossen to focus on Huerta

11:54: Huerta and others sit in front of the gate

12:01 PM: Ribner leaves the property and assaults Huerta [note his report timeline goes haywire in here]

12:00-12:09: Crossen texts Ribner

12:15: Crossen claims van arrives (his description describe others who were in front of the van, then says Huerta also was)

12:15: Ribner calls 911 (claiming this is about pepper spray)

12:18: Crossen describes a scrimmage line

12:20-12:40: Discussions about Huerta’s attempt to call his attorney

12:30: LAFD responds; Huerta asks to be brought to the hospital; Crossen describes LAFD arrival this way:

At approximately 12:28 p.m., TFO Crossen observed a Los Angeles City Fire truck with activated emergency lights and loud audible siren, attempting to gain entry to the business, still being blocked by protestors, to render aid for HUERTA, inside the business, who had been exposed to OC Spray, during his arrest.

12:40: Ribner reports arrest to CACD US Attorney office

12:42: Ribner tells Crossen his personal phone is out of battery, asks him to use his government one

12:47: Ribner admits he used pepper spray

1:05: Ribner speaks to USAO again

1:30: Huerta taken to hospital w/agent in car

2:45: Ribner asks Crossen for pictures of Huerta

Unmarked time: Mayor Bass shows up to hospital room; they ask her to leave (and she does)

9:12: Crossen sends last clip from videos to Ribner (the discovery turned over provides nowhere near the “4 hours” or “100 videos” that Crossen told Ribner, five hours earlier, that he had taken (though the defense did not include all the texts in their exhibit)

9:36: Ribner obtains warrant for Huerta’s phone

10:30: Huerta attorney turns over the phone

June 8: Huerta charged with felony conspiracy

June 9: Case opened

June 17: Date created for one photo provided in discovery

June 19: Initial incident report; Ribner would later (in his September 10 interview) admit he wrote the report from memory and simply did not “recall that he told HUERTA, ‘You are not impeding’. He does not know why he did not include that statement in his report and agrees that his statement could sound exculpatory.”

June 23: Countersurveillance report from Crossen

July 2: Second set of discovery

July 17: Third set of discovery

July 28: Fourth set of discovery (including agent texts)

August 20: USAO interviews Brian Gonzalez, who drove the van allegedly blocked

August 27: USAO interviews Carey Crook; he told AUSAs that, contrary to Ribner’s claim, Huerta did not assault him

August 27: USAO interviews Crossen

September 9: USAO reinterviews Gonzalez; he says he does not remember Huerta straddling the van, as Crooks claimed

September 10: USAO interviews Ribner

September 11: Gonzalez starts at a new job at CBP

September 17: Later case opening date, possibly focusing on the lying agents

October 17: Huerta charged with misdemeanor

November 5: Huerta’s attorneys ask AUSA to identify the obstructive conduct

December 19: AUSA finally provides vague description of conduct

January 2: Interview of HSI Special Agent J Smith

January 9: Second interview with Brian Gonzalez

January 9: Interview with HSI Agent Andre Lemon

DHS Assaulting Protesters Because Goons Believe They Are “Vicious, Horrible People”

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215 days before Jonathan Ross shot Renee Good dead after Good’s wife, Becca, engaged in First Amendment protected taunting of Ross, HSI Special Agent Ryan Ribner rushed through a gate at at a Los Angeles garment factory and — along with ICE Officer Carey Crook — assaulted SEIU CA President David Huerta, targeting Huerta rather than several other people who were more directly blocking a van, the purported crime in question.

Huerta argued in a motion to dismiss on First Amendment grounds submitted last week, days before Good’s killing,  that Ribner and Crook did not arrest Huerta for obstructing a Federal officer, which is what got charged after DOJ abandoned a claim that Huerta had conspired to impede officers, much less the assault that they contemplated charging initially, but because Huerta had engaged in that First Amendment protected taunting.

It may well be that Ribner lied when he claimed he didn’t learn Huerta was a powerful union leader until after he assaulted him. Months later, the undercover officer working the crowd, Jeremy Crossen, admitted people in the crowd referred to Huerta as a union “member,” though that didn’t appear in either the texts that got shared with Huerta in discovery — which described the institutional affiliation of others — or a countersurveillance report he wrote weeks after the assault, where he included the research he had done after the fact for everyone but the state president of one of the most powerful unions in the country, the guy who got assaulted.

But if Huerta wasn’t targeted because he’s a powerful Democrat (in Ribner’s report there’s a weird claim that the agent guarding Huerta in the hospital only “feigned” interest when Mayor Karen Bass showed up to Huerta’s hospital room), then the record shows little else beyond speech.

According to videos turned over in discovery, Ribner started predicting Huerta would go to jail based solely off taunting, mostly about their masks.

Mr. Huerta asked them, “How are you keeping us safe?” Agent Ribner’s response was: “You are gonna go to jail. You are not impeding us. You are not impeding us. You’re going to jail, [unintelligible from 0:00:09–00:11] and you’re going to jail.” Id. at 0:00:01–00:12. Mr. Huerta then repeatedly asked him, “What are you doing?” and told him, “I can’t hear you through your fuckin’ mask,” and pointed at Agent Ribner. Id. at 0:00:14–00:17. Agent Ribner can be heard replying: “You’re gonna go to jail, you’re going to jail.” Id. at 0:00:17. For the next few minutes, Mr. Huerta continued to protest in front of the gate, including conversing with Agent Ribner, Officer Crook, and other officers, including, according to agents’ after-the-fact reports, “aggressively”4 asking the officers to identify themselves, stating “What are you going to do… Where’s your fucking badge number… What’s your fucking name?” Ex. B at 9. He also allegedly stated: “You’re not police! You’re not fucking police! You’re not keeping me safe!”

Indeed, Ribner’s own report describes himself predicting that Huerta and others would obstruct them, so he instructed his colleagues to be prepared to make arrests.

Later, HUERTA approached the gate and began yelling and about wanting to see agents’ faces. At times HUERTA was putting his arms through the fence as he yelled, and on at least one occasion he pointed as well. HUERTA stated, “Your boss” [believed to be referring to President Trump] wants things “made in America”. HUERTA went on and said that the things were manufactured inside of Ambiance. HUERTA appeared to be aggressive and angry by his voice, demeanor, and facial features. At some point HUERTA walked up to the gate and asked either about the purpose or legit impact of agents’ duties. SSA Ribner asked HUERTA the purpose of what he was doing [regarding being belligerent with law enforcement]. HUERTA made a comment that he lived in the community and /or cared about the community. SSA Ribner advised HUERTA that “we” [agents] also live in the community. SSA Ribner made the comment to HUERTA in the hopes of obtaining HUERTA’s compliance by advising HUERTA that law enforcement agents are just like him and care about the community and are also part of the demographic of the southern California area.

[snip]

STRONG, and LENEHAN would highly likely block or impede law enforcement vehicles, cause damage to USG property, or commit a battery against agents as they attempt to depart. SSA Ribner informed the DEA agents that if anyone in the crowd impedes, blocks, or physically batters an agent that arrests would be made. [my emphasis]

“He pointed as well”!!! And from that (and perhaps in his view that Huerta was Hispanic? — though several other people present looked more obviously Hispanic), Ribner concluded Huerta was aggressive.

Even though a vehicle had already entered the gate Ribner stood behind without major obstruction, Ribner predicted that a white detainee van that pulled up shortly after the conflict with Huerta occurred, while the gate was still closed, would incite some response. Huerta was on the public sidewalk in front of the gate, though several other people were more directly in front of the van’s path. But when the gate did open, at which point Huerta was to the side of the van, Crook and Ribner rushed Huerta and pushed him down.

That’s when Ribner conducted a brutal arrest, even applying pepper spray to his hand and smothering Huerta’s face with it, because — he claimed after Huerta sought hospital treatment for a head injury — Ribner did not want Huerta to hit his head on the curb he was driving it into.

SSA Ribner decided to deploy a chemical agent (pepper spray) on HUERTA due to HUERTA actively resisting arrest, the angered crowd, and HUERTA’s safety as his head was near a cement curb and SSA Ribner didn’t want him suffering an injury. Due to the concern of over spraying the chemical agent with others nearby (SDDO C and the crowd) or spraying HUERTA directly in the eyes, SSA Ribner decided to spray a small amount of the chemical agent in his hand and place his hand near the upper nose area of HUERTA’s face. HUERTA began to make noises and say that he couldn’t breathe.

Huerta’s head got slammed, and Huerta sought immediate hospital care. In his arrest report — again, written after he learned Huerta had a head injury — Ribner describes feeling no lump on Huerta’s head but said he did so to help Huerta to clean the pepper spray that Ribner’s post hoc reports claim he specifically avoided getting in his eyes out of Huerta’s eyes.

Agent’s Note: During the arrest encounter SSA Ribner never personally observed HUERTA strike his head on the ground. Additionally, when SSA Ribner was decontaminating HUERTA, he placed his hands on the back of HUERTA’s head to help move his head back to place water in his eyes and face area. SSA Ribner never felt any bumps or cuts on the back of HUERTA’s head. Additionally, SSA Ribner didn’t observe any physical bumps or cuts on HUERTA’s head.

As so often has happened after DHS assaults and hurts someone, that night make-believe US Attorney Bill Essayli accused Huerta of assault.

And sometime later, Ribner was in a meeting with Todd Blanche, and Essayli promised Blanche this would go to trial in September or October.

GS Ribner stated he spoke with United States Attorney Bill Essayli about this case and others, such as the Deputy Attorney General (DAG) and Special Agent in Charge Eddie Wang. During the briefing, USA Essayli told the DAG that “this case is going to trial in September or October

It did not go to trial in September or October. Instead, as AUSAs learned more about what happened, they gave up the felony charge.

As you can tell from Ribner’s attempt to build in deniability for the head injury, Ribner obviously tried to reverse-engineer his actions, to provide some excuse for the assault.

As I noted at the time, when Ribner wrote the arrest affidavit back in June, he absurdly claimed that Huerta intimidated him because he banged on the gate.

“Banged on a gate” and “pointed as well”!?!?! No wonder they asked to detain Huerta pretrial.

Ribner’s initial arrest report (the same report where he denied knowledge of a head injury, which he wrote almost two weeks after the arrest) is full of things — including some alleged assaults by protesters, but also including exchanges like the local San Diegans who, days before the Huerta assault, shouted “shame” until ICE abandoned their effort to raid a local restaurant — that Ribner cited to explain why he implanted an undercover agent at the scene to seek out a vast conspiracy Ribner was sure existed.

Mostly, though, I suspect it was the shame.

Huerta was lucky. Because he’s an American citizen, he couldn’t be shunted off to a GEO prison and refused access to his attorneys, which is what make-believe US Attorney Essayli did to prevent Carlitos Ricardo Parias from unpacking the problems with the claims of assault against him. Because — unlike Renee Good — Huerta survived, DOJ had to try to invent a criminal case out of Ribner’s own actions.

But, it appears that by August, after several delays in attempting to indict Huerta, the whole charade started falling apart. Ribner’s report (which, on top of the obvious retconning of his actions, did not match the documented timeline in a few other areas) and the absence of any crime was bad enough. But the witness stories didn’t match, even though there’s good reason to believe they were coordinated after the fact. In addition to claiming he noticed Huerta arrive in real time rather than after Ribner called him out, Crossen described Huerta push back, something not captured in video (and which Crossen may not have been able to see from where he stood). Carey Crook (the guy who first pushed Huerta), falsely claimed Huerta had splayed himself across the van in an X, and similarly invented a claim that Ribner had sprayed Huerta, rather than smother his face in pepper spray. The driver of the van, Brian Gonzales, didn’t remember seeing Huerta in a first interview, but in a follow-up the day before he would start a new permanent job at CBP, he did, though he disputed Crook’s claim that Huerta had splayed across the van grill.

Crossen explained that his video didn’t capture Huerta in front of the van because he started filming just after that. He said he did all this on his personal phone because his government phone wasn’t working that day (in addition to the motion to dismiss, Huerta is also demanding the Cellebrite metadata for the texts extracted from the personal phones both Ribner and Crossen used that day). He admitted that Ribner gave instructions on how to write up his countersurveillance report, but didn’t tell him what to say.

Ribner’s was the last interview from this period when DOJ was stalling the case, a week before a new case opening date possibly focused on Ribner. When asked to describe his actions, as problems with the arrest must have become evident, Ribner explained simply that the peaceful protesters were “vicious, horrible people.”

GS Ribner stated HUERTA and other protesters are “vicious, horrible people”.[In reference to a still photo of video 2774 at 0:03], GS Ribner identified HUERTA. He recalled telling HUERTA, “You better not block the cars”. He stated that HUERTA was not in the way of vehicles or personnel at this point.

Stephen Miller has told all Trump supporters, especially those who work at DHS, that people who support immigration are vicious, horrible people. And he gave them rules of engagement that invited assaults like this, assaults they simply bury in often-failed attempts to criminalize the victim.

It’s surprising it took seven months before someone Stephen Miller has defined as a vicious horrible person got killed.

Timeline

June 6: Arrest

9:00 AM: HSI task force officer (and Inglewood cop) Jeremy Crossen arrives under cover

9:20: Agents start executing search

9:57: Crossen interacts with Asian woman

10:26: Crossen interacts w/Hispanic protestor, claims he is monitoring the police

10:33: Crossen texts Ribner

11:07: Crossen sees pick-up without plates whose Hispanic driver films

11:19: Crossen describes a Hispanic woman with a neck gaiter; his report provides background on a Kids of Immigrants sweatshirt she wears; start time of alleged criminal conduct

11:25: A sedan enters the gate; after an agent instructs those filming it to step away, they do; Crossen texts Ribner,

 

11:31: A Hispanic woman whom Crossen IDs by name shows up, makes phone calls

11:36: Crossen describes a white woman by name, describes that she masked as the crowd grew

11:37: Crossen describes the Hispanic leader of ACCE Action, Council Member Jose Delgado, show up, make calls

11:49: Crossen claims he sees Huerta walk up

11:51: A white woman from Tenants Union starts yelling obscenities

11:53: Ribner instructs Crossen to focus on Huerta

11:54: Huerta and others sit in front of the gate

12:01 PM: Ribner leaves the property and assaults Huerta [note his report timeline goes haywire in here]

12:00-12:09: Crossen texts Ribner

12:15: Crossen claims van arrives (his description describe others who were in front of the van, then says Huerta also was)

12:15: Ribner calls 911 (claiming this is about pepper spray)

12:18: Crossen describes a scrimmage line

12:20-12:40: Discussions about Huerta’s attempt to call his attorney

12:30: LAFD responds; Huerta asks to be brought to the hospital; Crossen describes LAFD arrival this way:

At approximately 12:28 p.m., TFO Crossen observed a Los Angeles City Fire truck with activated emergency lights and loud audible siren, attempting to gain entry to the business, still being blocked by protestors, to render aid for HUERTA, inside the business, who had been exposed to OC Spray, during his arrest.

12:40: Ribner reports arrest to CACD US Attorney office

12:42: Ribner tells Crossen his personal phone is out of battery, asks him to use his government one

12:47: Ribner admits he used pepper spray

1:05: Ribner speaks to USAO again

1:30: Huerta taken to hospital w/agent in car

2:45: Ribner asks Crossen for pictures of Huerta

Unmarked time: Mayor Bass shows up to hospital room; they ask her to leave (and she does)

9:12: Crossen sends last clip from videos to Ribner (the discovery turned over provides nowhere near the “4 hours” or “100 videos” that Crossen told Ribner, five hours earlier, that he had taken (though the defense did not include all the texts in their exhibit)

9:36: Ribner obtains warrant for Huerta’s phone

10:30: Huerta attorney turns over the phone

June 8: Huerta charged with felony conspiracy

June 9: Case opened

June 17: Date created for one photo provided in discovery

June 19: Initial incident report; Ribner would later (in his September 10 interview) admit he wrote the report from memory and simply did not “recall that he told HUERTA, ‘You are not impeding’. He does not know why he did not include that statement in his report and agrees that his statement could sound exculpatory.”

June 23: Countersurveillance report from Crossen

July 2: Second set of discovery

July 17: Third set of discovery

July 28: Fourth set of discovery (including agent texts)

August 20: USAO interviews Brian Gonzalez, who drove the van allegedly blocked

August 27: USAO interviews Carey Crook; he told AUSAs that, contrary to Ribner’s claim, Huerta did not assault him

August 27: USAO interviews Crossen

September 9: USAO reinterviews Gonzalez; he says he does not remember Huerta straddling the van, as Crooks claimed

September 10: USAO interviews Ribner

September 11: Gonzalez starts at a new job at CBP

September 17: Later case opening date, possibly focusing on the lying agents

October 17: Huerta charged with misdemeanor

November 5: Huerta’s attorneys ask AUSA to identify the obstructive conduct

December 19: AUSA finally provides vague description of conduct

Pam Bondi’s Four Political Prosecutions

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Alina Habba announced the indictment of LaMonica McIver at 6:56PM on Tuesday night, an hour before polls in the New Jersey gubernatorial primary — in which Ras Baraka, referred to as Individual 1 in the indictment, ended up being the second-highest vote-getter — closed. The timing was dictated by a hearing scheduled for the next day, not the primary, but after being admonished by Magistrate Judge André Espionsa, it was an inappropriate rush to announce her trophy before polls closed, particularly since it took almost a day to get the indictment docketed.

There was a lot of shitty reporting based on Habba’s press release about the arrest.

I’ll unpack the indictment (which adds a misdemeanor instance of the two felony charges, 18 USC 111, that were announced in the complaint). The story Alina Habba tells about Baraka keeps changing, and that’s before you consider the parts of the story she doesn’t tell (and undoubtedly didn’t tell the grand jury that indicted the case).

But first I want to lay out elements of a pattern.

This is the fourth instance where Pam Bondi’s DOJ has charged a Democrat who did not meekly collude in DHS’ immigration gulag: Milwaukee Judge Hanna Dugan, Baraka, McIver, and David Huerta (they had to dismiss the charges against Baraka, and he is suing for malicious prosecution).

A pattern is emerging.

All of these cases were charged as complaint, even though both the Dugan and McIver case had time to go before a grand jury.

In the three assault-realted cases, Homeland Security has attested them; these may be men moved from their day job hunting international crime to carrying out Stephen Miller’s gulag.

In all cases, Pam Bondi’s people did something — posting a picture of Hannah Dugan handcuffed, Habba making false claims about Baraka and McIver on her personal Xitter account and then announcing the McIver indictment before polls closed in New Jersey, Acting US Attorney Bill Essayli posting about the Huerta assault before it was charged — that violates DOJ’s media guidelines. In the assault related cases, HSI arguably assaulted a Democrat doing something legal (Congressional and Mayoral oversight in the New Jersey case, peaceful protest on a public sidewalk in Huerta’s case), and charged them for it — though DHS has done that with non-public citizens as well.

None of this means these cases (Baraka’s excepted) will fail. It means the people Bondi keeps charging even after being admonished in the Baraka case (and the Eric Adams case) will be able to point back to an increasing pattern.

Hannah Dugan docket

Ras Baraka criminal docket

Ras Baraka civil docket

LaMonica McIver docket

David Huerta docket

Banging on a Gate: Pam Bondi Found a Cyber Investigator Who Doesn’t Check Phone Logs!

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Less than three weeks ago, Pam Bondi’s DOJ got admonished by a Magistrate Judge for charging first, investigating latter.

When dismissing Ras Baraka’s charges on May 21, Magistrate Judge André Espinosa scolded the AUSA present — and by proxy, DOJ — for arresting Newark’s Mayor before doing basic investigation.

The hasty arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, followed swiftly by the dismissal of these trespassing charges a mere 13 days later, suggests a worrisome misstep by your Office. An arrest, particularly of a public figure, is not a preliminary investigative tool. It is a severe action, carrying significant reputational and personal consequences, and it should only be undertaken after a thorough, dispassionate evaluation of credible evidence.

It’s precisely that commitment to rigorous 19 investigation and thoughtful prosecution that has 20 characterized the distinguished history of your Office, Mr. Demanovich, particularly over the last two decades. The bench and the bar have witnessed in that period, the diligence and care demonstrated by prior U.S. attorneys in New Jersey, whose leadership has consistently upheld the highest standards of prosecutorial ethics and professionalism. Their legacy is one of careful deliberate action where charges were brought only after exhaustive evidence gathering and a thorough consideration of all facts That bedrock principle, consistently honored by your predecessors, is the foundation upon which the credibility and effectiveness of your Office rests.

So let this incident serve as an inflection point and a reminder to uphold your solemn oath to the people of this District and to your client, Justice itself, and ensure that every charge brought is the product of rigorous investigation and earned confidence in its merit mirroring the exemplary conduct that has long defined your Office.

The apparent rush in this case culminating today in the embarrassing retraction of charges suggests failure to adequately investigate to carefully gather facts and to thoughtfully consider the implications of your actions before wielding your immense power Your Office must operate with higher standard than that.

But just 18 days later, Pam Bondi’s DOJ charged another prominent Democrat — this time, SEIU CA President David Huerta — via complaint, without first doing basic investigation. The complaint, which was released before Huerta’s initial appearance yesterday, charges Huerta with one count of conspiring to impede an officer, a felony (h/t to Meghann Cuniff for releasing the complaint).

The incident occurred outside of this fast fashion factory, where officers were conducting a search.

As Bondi’s DOJ did with Ras Baraka (the charges that were dismissed) and LaMonica McIver (she has a hearing tomorrow), ICE team members physically grappled with their target, and then arrested them for the interaction. In this case, agents picked up Heurta and knocked him over, knocking his head into a curb and wrenching what he said was a bad shoulder in the process of cuffing him. He went to the hospital for treatment during his weekend detention.

There are two elements that have to be proven to convict Huerta of this felony: first, that the defendant used force, intimidation, or threats to induce a US official to stop doing his job. When this same charge was used against January 6 militias, prosecutors relied on actual assaults of cops, threats to spray them, military formation and kit, and threats to assassinate members of Congress. All of it threatened physical violence and even death.

The closest such threat to these guys was someone — no tie to Huerta is alleged — who told officers to shoot themselves.

As a crowd gathered outside of the vehicular gate, individuals in the crowd began screaming expletives at law enforcement officers through the gate in an attempt to intimidate them. For example, one individual yelled “I want you to kill yourself! Go home and drink a lot of vodka and shoot yourself with your own god damn revolver!”

As to Huerta specifically, the affiant of this complaint claimed that Huerta’s banging on the gate to the facility was an “attempt to intimidate us,” and pointed to Huerta’s repeated taunts about his mask and claimed that this was necessarily an attempt to dox and intimidate the officers “in the future.”

I told HUERTA that if he continued to block the gate, he would be arrested. HUERTA replied “I can’t hear you through your fucking mask.” Others in the crowd repeatedly asked me and other law enforcement officers to take our masks off and attempted to film our faces and badges in an apparent attempt to intimidate us. Based on my training and experience, I know that protestors often do this so that they can publish identifying information about law enforcement officers online.1 That way, others can harass or threaten the law enforcement officers in the future.

The affiant’s name is redacted in several places in the affidavit, but not in the section where he introduces his background. He doxed himself, while citing the imagined threat of doxing as the intimidation necessary to sustain these charges.

But it’s the conspiracy part of this that is particularly nutty. Prosecutors need to show that Huerta entered into an agreement with at least one other person to intimidate an ICE team to stop them from doing their job.

As a threshold matter, the complaint presents no evidence that Huerta or anyone else knew what the law enforcement officers were doing — executing a judicial search warrant rather than conducting a raid based on an administrative warrant. That may matter to proving intent.

More importantly, the affiant just points to person after person and says, well maybe that indicates a conspiracy.

A woman provided details of the law enforcement presence into her phone. Maybe that was a conspiracy.

Protestors who arrived at the site — video-taped by an undercover officer!! — were communicating with each other. Maybe that was a conspiracy.

Huerta was “apparently typing text into his digital device while present at the protest.” Maybe that was a conspiracy.

Huerta lives nine miles away from the garment factory, so had to have learned of ICE activity from someone “coordinating a protest at this location.” Maybe that was a conspiracy.

Someone — no tie to Huerta is alleged, and there’s no indication he was arrested — attempted to padlock the gate. Maybe that was a conspiracy.

Huerta said, “What are you going to do, you can’t arrest us all,” which the affiant presents as proof that “he and the others had planned in advance of arrival to disrupt the operation.” Maybe that was a conspiracy.

Nowhere does the affiant even allege that Huerta and the others entered into a conspiracy to intimidate the beleaguered ICE officers standing behind a 7-foot steel fence, which protestors didn’t try to breach when it opened, remaining all the time on a public sidewalk. Rather, he alleges a conspiracy to disrupt what the protesters might have thought was an ICE raid, meaning any attempt to provide proof of a conspiracy to impede officers by intimidating or threatening them is almost nonexistent. And he repeatedly calls this a protest, even while describing Huerta using the language of protests and pickets.

One of the nuttiest parts of this is that the affiant — the guy who cited the threat of doxing as proof of intimidation and then doxed himself — is a senior HSI Agent pulled off his normal duty conducting cyber financial investigations, the kind of thing that normally targets international crypto-facilitated crimes.

I am a Supervisory Special Agent (“SSA”) with the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”). I currently supervise the Cyber Financial investigations group at the HSI Los Angeles office.

The bread and butter of cyber investigations are digital tracks: cell phone, social media, and financial records.

The FBI collected reams and reams of such things before charging the aforementioned 18 USC 372 conspiracies against Jan6 militias. There were Signal and Telegram chats, Parler posts, saved communications from walkie-talkie chats during the riot, reported conversations from a number of cooperating witnesses, on top of the actual assaults of cops and weapons and direct threats.

And this guy, whose forté is to collect such things … hasn’t. He refers to Huerta’s digital device twice, but doesn’t say whether he tried to exploit it. He refers to social media posts (even while assuming the woman who first reported from the scene was using a videoconference app rather than just posting to TikTok or something), but he doesn’t cite a single post. He doesn’t even have phone records — available via subpoena even on a weekend — to identify with whom, if any, of the other protestors Huerta was really communicating.

Ryan Ribner, who wouldn’t have gotten where he was in his day job without highly developed skills at collecting and analyzing digital tracks, hasn’t (claimed to have) done any of that.

Another instance of charge first, investigate later.

There are several indications that may be the point.

First, there’s that undercover officer, who was filming the entire time but apparently didn’t produce a single video that could substantiate a conspiracy. This protest was miniscule. Why was there an undercover officer present at all? Did it have everything to do with Huerta’s presence (the undercover, as described, seemed focused on Huerta)?

Our trusty cyber expert also suggests that the van entering the gate of the facility — the predicate for making Huerta move and therefore the predicate to tackling him, injuring him, and then arresting him — may not, after all, be the only entrance. He describes that “as far as I was aware,” it was.

As far as I was aware, this gate was the only location through which vehicles could enter or exit the premises.

I wonder whether his awareness has changed over the weekend.

As this goes forward, it’s likely that our intrepid cyber investigator will actually subpoena some phone records, do the kind of thing he has been doing for over a decade. It’s likely he will then try to substantiate a conspiracy for which he has presented no more than speculation. Given his conflation of what he himself calls a protest and the intimidation and physical force contemplated in 18 USC 372, given the calls — including from Trump — to substantiate some organized background behind the larger protests in a city of 10 million, he may well imagine a conspiracy in SEIU’s organized protests.

Protests are what unions do, and SEIU is an enormously important union with close ties to the Democratic party. Will official and private communications among SEIU personnel planning protests look like plans for protests? Yes, of course. And DOJ will claim that banging on a gate is so intimidating to a bunch of armed law enforcement officers standing behind it that those plans for protests amount to a felony.

Pam Bondi’s DOJ first assaulted and injured, then charged, a very important labor leader with a conspiracy charge the evidence for which they didn’t even bother to look for.

Yet.

And that seems to be the point.

Update: The crack staff in Los Angeles’ US Attorney’s Office finally docketed the case. They asked for Huerta to be detained (which, I guess, is how they got a judge to impose a $50K bond)!

The Big Ugly: Stephen Miller Uses His War on Home Depot to Invade California

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Yesterday, Trump used the opportunity of a protest against brutal ICE action staged out of Paramount, CA (close to a Home Depot location) to federalize 2,000 California National Guard for force protection — a step towards, but still short of, invoking the Insurrection Act (see Steve Vladeck for a description of what Trump, legally, did; update: and an even more detailed description from Lawfare). Pete Hegseth has also floated sending the Marines to an American city, a suggestion Gavin Newsom called, “deranged.”

It’s all a transparent confrontation used to invade a blue city.

All this comes comes as the hours longshormen at LA ports work have dropped in half due to Trump’s trade war, and some of the workplaces ICE targeted were in the garment district, where actual manufacturing still occurs. In addition, Trump has promised to start cutting Federal grants to California, which led Gavin Newsom to point out that CA is a net donor to Federal taxes.

This was a natural escalation stemming directly from Stephen Miller’s shrill tantrums demanding that ICE focus more on law-abiding undocumented people rather than the criminal aliens he lied about during the election. The escalation comes in the wake of Elon Musk’s meltdown, which might otherwise make passage of Trump’s reconciliation bill funding a massive expansion of Miller’s gulag. It comes as a few libertarians — Tom Massie called for “Realistic border funding” and “No bloat for military industrial complex” in his pitch for a new “skinny” bill — focus on the huge funding for the gulag.

This inital use of federal troops in a blue city should be understood as an effort to build pressure to help pass the bill. It should also be used as an example of the danger of passing the bill — the kind of authoritarianism that Miller intends to wield if the bill does pass.

As Washington Examiner was the first to report (a testament to the kind of people who were pissed about this tantrum), two weeks ago Miller called senior ICE officials to a meeting in DC to berate them that they’re not meeting his impossible quotas for arrests, 3,000 people a day. During the meltdown he had at the meeting, Miller specifically ordered ICE to start staging arrests at Home Depot and 7-Eleven. Miller specifically berated ICE officials because they were focusing on the criminal aliens around which Miller built Trump’s re-election campaign.

ICE’s top 50 field officials were given roughly a week’s notice of an emergency meeting in Washington.

ICE’s 25 Enforcement Removal Operations, or ERO, field office directors and 25 Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI, special agents in charge flew into Washington and descended on the agency’s Washington headquarters last Tuesday, May 20. There, they were met by Miller, ICE confirmed to the Washington Examiner.

“Miller came in there and eviscerated everyone. ‘You guys aren’t doing a good job. You’re horrible leaders.’ He just ripped into everybody. He had nothing positive to say about anybody, shot morale down,” said the first official, who spoke with those in the room that day.

“Stephen Miller wants everybody arrested. ‘Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?’” the official recited.

One of the ERO officials in attendance stood up and stated that the Department of Homeland Security and the White House had publicly messaged about targeting criminal illegal immigrants, and therefore, ICE was targeting them, and not the general illegal immigration population.

“Miller said, ‘What do you mean you’re going after criminals?’ Miller got into a little bit of a pissing contest. ‘That’s what Tom Homan says every time he’s on TV: ‘We’re going after criminals,’” the ICE official told Miller, according to the first official.

The protests started in response to two things: Raids on work places and also the detention of a growing number of people without food in the basement of a federal building — the latter of which Representative Jimmy Gomez was protesting most of the day. At an early tiny peaceful protest, ICE assaulted and then arrested SEIU California President, David Huerta, injuring him badly enough to require hospital treatment, during their assault. He remains in custody. The assault-and-arrest bears similarities to the staged confrontation at Delaney Hall and ICE’s invasion of Jerry Nadler’s office in recent weeks.

Huerta’s treatment drew condemnation from Democratic leaders across the country, including LA Mayor Karen Bass.

Multiple Trump authoritarians, including Miller, responded to Bass’ condemnation of the violence ICE was wielding by insisting that “Federal law is supreme and federal law will be enforced.”

From there, the protests against ICE grew, many of them mocking ICE. But ICE and LA Sheriffs (the LAPD deployed, but said it saw no violence) escalated. Nevertheless, protests remain localized (around the ICE facility and at the Federal building).

Numerous Administration keyboard warriors, including Miller, are tying the protest in Los Angeles to his Big Ugly bill, using the very same eliminationist language Trump’s used to kick off an assault on the Capitol.

The through-line here is crystal clear.

Ratchet up raids on peaceful people to hit impossible quotas (ICE came close, but did not meet, Miller’s 3,000 arrest quota on two days last week).

Use protests against that draconian invasion to arrest Democratic leaders and invade a blue city.

Point to the chaos created by Miller’s draconian ICE raids to demand passage of the Big Ugly bill, which will codify and expand precisely that kind of draconian ICE raid.

Create chaos, and then use that chaos to try to codify authoritarian power.