President Donald Trump tapped two prosecutors with experience in warrantless surveillance to go after protesters, a new report flagged.
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According to reporting by The Lever, the Trump Department of Justice hired two prosecutors with histories of using warrantless surveillance to helm a unit tasked with cracking down on “anti-Americanism.”
Prosecutors Brian Lynch and Jason Kellhofer litigated Guantanamo Bay military trials, led pre-crime prosecutions, and argued against civil rights protections during the War on Terror, according to The Lever. In June, their task force indicted 15 people who were charged in relation to protests against the immigration law enforcement operations in Minneapolis in January, The Lever reported.
Now, they’re both leading Joint Task Force Vanguard, a task force designed to prosecute cases under the Trump administration’s National Security Presidential Memorandum and go after activity deemed “anti-capitalism,” “anti-Christianity,” and “extremism on migration, race, and gender.”
Lynch prosecuted cases in the Bagram detention complex, which The Lever noted is also known as “Afghanistan’s Guantanamo.” He also prosecuted Guantanamo Bay detainees, as noted on his LinkedIn profile, The Lever reported.
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Meanwhile, Kellhofer prosecuted an Uzbek human rights advocate who allegedly attempted to join a terrorist group and was the target of warrantless surveillance.
“The new boogeyman is the generalized anti-fascist left,” law professor Wadie Said, who authored Crimes of Terror, told The Lever. “What are the required links between these groups? How organized do they have to be? All these questions that in the past were answered in favor of the government in international terrorism cases — they’re all applicable now in the domestic context.”
Along with the Minneapolis protesters, the task force charged two civilians who allegedly set off fireworks that damaged property while protesting the construction of an Atlanta police training center. Another indictment by the task force came against an Oklahoma man accused of threatening Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD).
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