A pair of protesters are suing right-wing commentator and media personality Benny Johnson for defamation after he allegedly smeared them as “left-wing terrorists” who attacked federal immigration officers.
The lawsuit, first reported by MS NOW, appears to be the first defamation case stemming from Donald Trump’s surge of federal agents to support his mass deportation efforts, cheered on by Trump’s media allies and content creators using their large platforms to assail demonstrators and boost the president’s anti-immigration agenda.
Illinois residents Kyle Frankovich, a data scientist at Harvard University, and Maureen Foody, a court reporter, say they were arrested while peacefully protesting outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in suburban Chicago when they were wrongfully accused of being “terrorists” who assaulted officers.
“These individuals assaulted ICE officers as they were trying to clear out the area behind us over here,” Johnson said in a video, according to the complaint.
Johnson, who has more than 10 million followers on X and YouTube combined, was making the videos while embedded with then-Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino and the Department of Homeland Security, which later used footage of Frankovich’s arrest in promotional materials to recruit ICE officers.
During his ride-along last October, Johnson “taunts the crowd” and tells them that it’s “your tears that keep us going,” according to the complaint.
His video then cuts to a close-up of the plaintiffs, shown with their hands bound behind their backs, in a line, as federal agents and police officers stand guard.
“Probably about a dozen left-wing terrorists arrested for attacking police officers and ICE officers,” Johnson says in the video, the complaint states.
“These individuals assaulted ICE officers as they were trying to clear out the area … where the engagement was. There were protesters blocking the entire lane here. Thankfully it looks like they have been cleared out by authorities,” Johnson continued,
He then spends several minutes describing protesters as “illegal,” “criminal,” and “violent” “terrorists,” according to the complaint.
That characterization is “false and defamatory,” and Johnson and his crew knew as much, the lawsuit states. Frankovich and Foody were ever charged with a crime.
“Ms. Foody and Mr. Frankovich stood peacefully in the area demarcated by authorities for First Amendment activity,” lawyers wrote Friday. “They sang songs, participated in prayers, held signs, and recorded official activity. They were unjustly seized by law enforcement, injured, and detained for hours before being released without charges.”
Johnson “knows that his portrayals were false. But he did not care,” according to the complaint.
Instead, he made “defamatory accusations repeatedly — on consecutive days and multiple platforms — to engage and grow his social media following and further his political agenda,” lawyers wrote.
The Independent has requested comment from representatives for Johnson.
Johnson, whose work is described in the lawsuit as “political combat dressed up as news,” has emerged as a prominent online activist and Turning Point USA personality in the Trump era following his exit from BuzzFeed, where he was fired for plagiarism.
Last year, the Trump administration invited Johnson to sit in the newly created “new media” seat during White House briefings.
“I saw dozens of Democrat domestic terrorists arrested today for VIOLENT ASSAULT on federal law enforcement. Every activist here attacked ICE agents in broad daylight just for enforcing American law,” Johnson wrote on X after filming the protests at Broadview last year.
Johnson’s posts spawned an avalanche of abusive messages targeting the two plaintiffs, according to the lawsuit.
Homeland Security even posted an image of Frankovich in zip ties with the caption “FAFO,” short for “f*** around and find out.”
“We will NOT allow violent activist [sic] to lay hands on our law enforcement,” the post said.
Federal judges reprimanded immigration officials and federal prosecutors in the aftermath of demonstrations outside the Broadview facility, which became a flashpoint protest activity during Trump’s “Operation Midway Blitz.”
In May, days before trial, federal prosecutors abruptly dropped all charges against a group of Broadview demonstrators after stunning admissions that serious “mistakes” were made, sparking allegations of a wider cover-up and threats of sanctions.
ICE officials were also ordered to improve conditions inside the facility where detainees said in court filings that they had been treated “worse than animals” and packed into unsanitary holding cells “like a pile of fish.”
