MINNEAPOLIS — The federal conspiracy case against the so-called Minnesota 15 got another dose of accountability-flavored indigestion Thursday, when defense lawyer Kevin Riach asked a federal judge to order the government to turn over more records from DHS’s surveillance of anti-ICE activists, labor unions and nonprofit groups. Because apparently the public is supposed to be comforted by a surveillance operation whose paperwork arrives like a delayed proper Italian sub.
Riach, who represents defendant Isaac Sant, requested materials including downloads from undercover agents’ phones and laptops, surveillance reports involving unions and advocacy groups, and communications between local prosecutors and their supervisors in Washington. The request concerns discovery in the federal prosecution; it is not a judicial finding that every surveillance activity was unlawful. The judge said an order would come as soon as possible, according to Minnesota Reformer’s report from the hearing.
The broader dispute matters because earlier court-filed records described DHS efforts to infiltrate meetings, monitor Signal chats and seek financial records from unions and progressive organizations during the Twin Cities immigration-enforcement surge. Prosecutors, meanwhile, have charged 15 people with offenses including conspiracy to impede federal officers; those are allegations, not convictions. The Justice Department’s charging announcement lays out its case, while the defense is demanding the material it says is needed to test how that case was built. That’s the rule-of-law part of the meal, pal — not garnish, not onion rings, the actual meal.
So now we wait for the court’s discovery ruling. In a country that remembers COINTELPRO only when somebody brings it up at the bar, a federal dragnet touching protest groups, unions and churches ought to get more scrutiny than a Michelob receipt found under Dick’s passenger seat.
Sources
- https://minnesotareformer.com/2026/08/27/attorney-argues-to-force-government-to-release-more-surveillance-records-in-minnesota-15-case/
- https://minnesotareformer.com/2026/08/13/feds-spied-on-protesters-left-wing-organizations-and-unions-during-metro-surge/
- https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/15-members-direct-action-minnesota-minneapolis-based-direct-action-group-antifa-ties
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Featured image: Warren E. Burger Federal Building (51841221220).jpg by Chad Davis from Minneapolis, United States, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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