"Go After the Troublemakers"
In June, millions of Americans took to the streets in every state in the country to protest racial injustice and police brutality. In response, President Donald Trump directed federal prosecutors to crack down.
“These are terrorists. They’re looking to do bad things to our country,” he told a meeting of governors. “We’re going to clamp down very, very strong.”
In the weeks and months since, U.S. attorneys have brought federal charges against 340 people attending protests in at least 31 states – and the vast majority of the crimes relate to property damage. In her story and podcast episode published over the weekend, reporter Anjali Kamat investigates why the federal government is prosecuting so many cases that normally would be handled in state or county courts.
Anjali’s story centers on Melquan Barnett (pictured above), who is facing federal charges for allegedly setting fire to a table at a coffee shop in downtown Erie, Pennsylvania, after taking part in a Black Lives Matter Protest. If convicted, he could face 5 to 20 years in prison. While the cafe owner wants no part in the prosecution, federal agents were able to bring the charges because the cafe gets its to-go cups from New York, sells gift cards online and has an online presence – when a business engages in interstate commerce, the feds have legal standing.
Anjali talks about how federal agencies are going after racial justice protesters using a legal infrastructure that was ostensibly created to pursue terrorists.
 What was the seed idea for this investigation?
I think it was a couple of things. One was just the sheer number of arrests that were happening at the protests. And then seeing a little bit of news coverage about how some of those arrests were ending up as federal cases. I thought that was really interesting. In maybe the second or third week of June, I noticed there were already more than 100 cases – and this was just based on news reports and press releases. I realized I wanted to start actually building out a database of arrests.
I was also interested in this idea that feds were using the commerce clause, this principle that feds can come in if anything crosses state boundaries or if it affects interstate commerce. So in Melquan’s case, it was the coffee cups. I just thought, “Oh, how strange they're going after this person because the coffee shop owner gets her coffee cups from another state. That's a strange case.” Then I saw another case where a guy was accused of having a Molotov cocktail, and the reason the feds got involved was because the bottle for the Molotov cocktail was a tequila bottle from Mexico. I just got really interested in it.
What do you think most people don't understand about the arrests of protesters?
We have to go back to what Attorney General William Barr said just five days after George Floyd was murdered. He put out a press release saying the Department of Justice (DOJ) is going to assist in going after people who commit violent crimes, people who protest and violate federal laws. And the DOJ was going to use the structure that was used to go after domestic terrorists – the Joint Terrorism Task Forces – so local police would work with FBI and federal prosecutors to identify people and to build these cases. I thought that was really alarming. For the most part, the protests were overwhelmingly peaceful. One study by the Crowd Counting Consortium found that in the first month of protests, 96.3% of them were entirely peaceful. Thinking about that, and then contrasting that to public comments by Trump and Barr, is really telling. On a private phone call with governors, Trump openly talked about the protesters as terrorists and needing to crush them.
How do you think, as journalists, we can do a better job of reporting on protests and social movements?
It’s like that whole “if it bleeds, it leads” thing. There is a tendency for journalists to just focus on what gets broken, not what's being built. Especially when covering protests and social movements, I think it's really important to understand why people are going out and that it's not usually a one-time thing. As Melquan says, “There were many, many more before George Floyd; this wasn't the first time.” I think understanding the depths of people's pain and grief and anger is important. It’s also important to try to actually talk to as many people as possible at the protest to understand why people are out there. There's also the problem of many media organizations just getting their numbers and reports straight from the police. When that becomes the narrative, the story becomes that the protest was violent and the protest damaged many businesses, not, “OK, there were also some skulls cracked at the protest. There were also some eyes that were shot out at the protests.”
A big issue that's been in the spotlight this year is the journalistic problems with using police as the only source for information. Can you talk about how you approach using police numbers and narratives as a source in your reporting?
I think as journalists, what we should be doing is interrogating all our sources. We don't just accept anything at face value, right? If anybody tells me something, it's my job to fact check it. Doing this story, I got Melquan’s side of the story. And then I also wanted to hear from the police. I think in general, it's just really important for us to be skeptical – especially of sources in power and sources who might have something to hide if certain information comes out. So I will absolutely give them space to tell me their opinion and to tell me what their numbers show. But then it's also my job to not just take those numbers uncritically, but to question them.
Read the story: ‘Go after the troublemakers’
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Emily Harris is a Portland, Oregon-based senior reporter and producer who describes her job as “contributing to the magic” of Reveal. 
