Prairieland Update: The Government Knew
FBI records show the agency investigated "Antifa DFW" in 2018 and found no threat. Prosecutors hid that evidence while convicting nine people of terrorism.
This is breaking news regarding the Prairieland defendants whom I wrote about earlier this week in Attending a Protest Is Now Terrorism.
Two weeks ago, a federal jury in Fort Worth convicted nine people of providing material support to terrorists. The terrorism charges are why they face decades in prison instead of months. Without them, most of the defendants would be looking at minor property crimes—or nothing at all.
The government’s case for terrorism rested entirely on one premise: that antifa is a violent extremist network posing a serious threat to national security.
Today, In These Times published a report regarding FOIA records showing the FBI investigated “Antifa DFW” in 2018 and closed the case because they found the opposite.
“No potential criminal violations or priority threats to national security warranting further investigation were identified.”
The government had evidence directly contradicting their terrorism theory. They didn’t give it to the defense.
Why This Matters: The Enhancement
This distinction is critical. Some criminal conduct occurred that night—spray paint on vehicles, fireworks toward a fence. One person fired a rifle and wounded a police officer. The shooter was convicted of attempted murder.
The terrorism theory required the jury to believe antifa is a genuine terrorist threat. The FBI’s own 2018 assessment said it wasn’t. The jury never heard that.
That matters for all nine defendants—but especially for the eight who weren’t convicted of violence. They were acquitted of attempted murder. Acquitted of discharging firearms. The terrorism charges are doing all the work. And those charges rested on a premise the government’s own agency had previously rejected.
The shooter told a cooperating witness that three of their co-defendants—Savanna Batten, Elizabeth Soto, and Ines Soto—“arrived late and didn’t know anything.” They face ten to sixty years.
It’s the only reason a married couple, Liz and Ines, might lose decades with their three children. It’s why a DACA recipient, Des, who wasn’t even at the protest—who moved a box of zines from his parents’ house—faces forty years and deportation to a country he left at fourteen. It’s why a mother, Mari, might not see her twelve-year-old daughter grow up.
What the Defense Asked For
In January 2026, before trial, defense attorneys filed a motion requesting any evidence prosecutors used to conclude the “North Texas Antifa Cell” was a “militant enterprise.”
Judge Mark Pittman—a Trump appointee and Federalist Society member—denied the motion. He fined three defense attorneys $500 each for filing what he called “frivolous” requests.
Prosecutors told the defense they had “fulfilled their discovery obligations.”
They were sitting on FBI records concluding the alleged terrorist network posed no threat.
The Expert Who Testified to the Opposite
The government’s sole expert witness on antifa was Kyle Shideler of the Center for Security Policy—an organization the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated an anti-Muslim hate group. It was his first time testifying as an expert in any trial.
Shideler told the jury that antifa represents a serious domestic threat. He testified that using Signal, wearing black, and practicing “security culture” were hallmarks of antifa terrorism. The government called the defendants a “North Texas Antifa Cell.”
What the jury didn’t know:
The FBI had already investigated that exact network—“Antifa DFW” and its affiliated groups including “Dallas Antifa” and “DFW Anti-Fascist League”—and found nothing. No criminal violations. No national security threat. Case closed.
Shideler testified to the opposite of what the government’s own agency had concluded. The defense never got to cross-examine him on that because they never received the records.
Is This a Brady Violation?
Under Brady v. Maryland, prosecutors must disclose evidence favorable to the defense. An FBI assessment concluding the alleged “terrorist organization” posed no threat would seem to qualify.
Multiple defense attorneys told In These Times the records should have been disclosed. “The prosecution broke the law when it hid this evidence from the defense,” said Texas attorney George Lobb. “This internal FBI document shows the government lied about the defendants.”
Defense attorney Patrick McLain said the FBI records would be “grist for our appeal.”
But appeals go to the Fifth Circuit—a court the Texas Observer describes as “notoriously far-right,” with opinions so extreme the Supreme Court has repeatedly overturned them. These are not judges inclined to second-guess a Trump DOJ terrorism prosecution.
The government will likely argue that even if the jury had seen the 2018 records, conviction was appropriate because criminal activity still occurred. But that conflates the underlying conduct with the terrorism enhancement. The vandalism was never in question. The terrorism theory was. And that’s exactly what the concealed evidence undermined.
Whether this constitutes reversible error may depend less on the law than on who’s interpreting it.
The Larger Pattern
The government could argue that the threat changed after 2018—that antifa became dangerous between then and 2025. But that argument contradicts their own case. Shideler and prosecutors portrayed antifa as a longstanding threat with consistent tactics going back years. They didn’t argue something suddenly changed. They argued it was always this way.
More importantly, a changed assessment doesn’t excuse withholding the evidence. The jury should have been able to weigh the FBI’s prior conclusion against Shideler’s testimony. They never got that chance.
Throughout the trial, the defense called no witnesses. They made their case entirely through cross-examination. But they were missing the most powerful impeachment evidence available: the government’s own prior finding that the alleged terrorist network posed no threat. Had they known, they could have confronted Shideler directly—”The FBI investigated this exact group and closed the case. Why should the jury believe your assessment over theirs?”
They never got that chance.
What Happens Now
Sentencing is scheduled for June before Judge Pittman.
The defendants will appeal. The Fifth Circuit will likely hear it. The legal landscape is hostile.
But something shifted today. The prosecution’s foundation is now publicly visible as constructed, not discovered. A think tank operative testified as an expert. The FBI’s actual assessment was concealed. Eight people who never fired a shot face decades in prison based on a terrorism theory the government’s own agency had previously rejected.
The convictions may stand. The precedent may hold. But the record now shows even more clearly what this was: a political prosecution built on hidden evidence, expert testimony contradicted by the government’s own files, and a terrorism label applied to people the FBI previously found posed no threat.
AG Pam Bondi promised this case “will not be the last.” She’s probably right. But now everyone can see how the first one was built.
The In These Times investigation was produced in partnership with Type Investigations. Read the full report here.
For background on the Prairieland case and the defendants, see “Attending a Protest Is Now Terrorism.”
To support the defendants, visit prairielanddefendants.com or contribute to their legal defense fund.
They asked Shidler what typifies a terrorist cell and he described a right-wing/white nationalist militia 💀
Why didn’t the defense have an antifa/terrorism expert who told the truth about “antifa
?”