{"id":2618353,"date":"2026-06-24T08:02:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T12:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wapo-downplays-attempted-assassination-by-antifa-as-ice-protest\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T08:04:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T12:04:23","slug":"wapo-downplays-attempted-assassination-by-antifa-as-ice-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wapo-downplays-attempted-assassination-by-antifa-as-ice-protest\/","title":{"rendered":"WaPo Downplays Attempted Assassination By Antifa As &#8216;Protest&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwapo-downplays-attempted-assassination-by-antifa-as-ice-protest%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2618353&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>In July, a group of armed Antifa militants attacked an ICE detention facility in Texas, using firearms, body armor, and military-grade medical kits, with plans to disable security and shoot law enforcement. During the incident, Officer Thomas Gross was shot in the neck but survived; defendant Benjamin Song was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 100 years.The DOJ described the militants as organized, prepared, and armed, rather than merely protesting peacefully. Despite this, some media coverage, including The Washington Post and The Guardian, presented the event as a spontaneous protest that turned violent or as a peaceful noise demonstration, downplaying the militants&#8217; planning, weaponry, and aggression. The reporting often labeled the militants as &#8220;alleged&#8221; members or activists, ignoring evidence of conspiracy and violence. The coverage was criticized for misrepresenting the nature of the attack and the defendants&#8217; intent.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Last July, a group of armed Antifa militants ambushed an ICE detention facility in Texas, bringing rifles, body armor, and military-style medical kits. During the attack, one officer was shot through the neck. On Tuesday, several Antifa militants who participated in the attack were sentenced \u2014 including one individual who was convicted of attempted murder. <\/p>\n<p>But you might not necessarily glean that if you read the Washington Post\u2019s headline of the story. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cFederal judges in Texas on Tuesday gave eight members of an <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >alleged \u2018antifa cell\u2019 prison sentences<\/a> as long as 100 years for their roles last summer in a protest that turned violent outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/nation\/2026\/06\/23\/alleged-antifa-members-texas-get-maximum-sentences-ice-protest\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Molly Hennessy-Fiske<\/a> wrote. (The SEO <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/washingtonpost\/status\/2069502009703641178?s=46&#038;t=iqVGJ7p59_ixT6pAAvvDQA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">headline<\/a> for the piece states: \u201cAlleged antifa members in Texas are sentenced for ICE protest\u201d).<\/p>\n<p>This wasn\u2019t a \u201cprotest that turned violent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-ndtx\/pr\/antifa-cell-members-convicted-prairieland-ice-detention-center-shooting\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Department of Justice<\/a>, the defendants didn\u2019t merely show up with signs and get caught up in a crowd that lost control. The defendants got a lay of the land beforehand, discussed bringing firearms, arrived wearing dark clothing and face coverings, carried body armor, and brought firearms to the scene.<\/p>\n<p>They also brought what the DOJ described as \u201cmilitary-grade first aid kits with tourniquets and other items for gunshot wounds\u201d (as if anticipating needing such medical care as if authorities would randomly fire into a peaceful crowd of protesters). <\/p>\n<p>The plan, as prosecutors laid out, was to use fireworks to lure agents in the ICE facility outside. After disabling CCTV footage, the militants set off fireworks. One agent inside the facility called 911 and Alvaredo Police Lt. Thomas Gross responded to the scene. While issuing commands, Antifa militant Benjamin Song yelled \u201cget to the rifles\u201d before opening fire, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/sex-offender-tries-to-get-key-evidence-thrown-out-ahead-of-trial\/\" title=\"Sex offender tries to get key evidence thrown out ahead of trial\">body cam footage showed<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Gross was struck in the neck but survived. <\/p>\n<p>Song was convicted of attempted murder and was sentenced to 100 years in prison. <\/p>\n<p>The other defendants were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/former-marine-gets-100-years-prison-judge-calls-ice-detention-center-ambush-assault-democracy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">convicted<\/a> of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/actblue-facilitating-donations-to-terror-tied-charity-legal-group-says\/\" title=\"ActBlue Facilitating Donations to Terror-Tied Charity, Legal ... Says\">providing material support<\/a> to terrorists, rioting and conspiring to use and carry explosives, according to Fox News, and were also sentenced Tuesday. <\/p>\n<p>Yet throughout Hennessy-Fiske\u2019s article, readers are told these Antifa militants are only \u201calleged\u201d members of the Antifa cell and that Antifa is merely a \u201cloosely knit movement of far-left activists \u2014 often anti-capitalist or anti-state \u2014 who oppose fascism and other right-wing ideologies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors\u2019 description of Antifa is slightly different, instead defining Antifa as \u201ca <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/doj-brings-terrorism-charges-against-militant-antifa-cell\/\" title=\"DOJ Brings Terrorism Charges Against &#039;Militant&#039; ...\">militant enterprise made<\/a> up of networks of individuals and small groups, primarily ascribing to a revolutionary anarchist or autonomous Marxist ideology, which explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States government, law enforcement authorities and the system of law.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Washington Post wasn\u2019t alone in its outright false and twisted coverage.  <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/jun\/23\/prairieland-ice-protesters-texas-sentenced\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Guardian\u2019s<\/a> Sam Levine headlined his piece: \u201cTexas anti-ICE protesters convicted of terrorism charges sentenced to at least 50 years in prison,\u201d with a subhead that read: \u201cActivists accused of being part of Antifa get long prison terms in case seen as test of Trump\u2019s crackdown on dissent.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Levine portrays the defendants as merely \u201cnine activists\u201d and described the ambush as follows:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The demonstrators arrived late at night with a plan to set off fireworks as part of a noise demonstration to show solidarity with those detained inside. A few of the protesters spontaneously broke off from the main group and vandalized cars in the parking lot, a guard shack, slashed the tires on a government van and broke a security camera. When a police officer arrived on the scene and drew his weapon, one of the activists fired an AR-15 from the woods, hitting the officer in the shoulder. The officer survived.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>There\u2019s a lot wrong with Levine\u2019s description of the attack, starting with the fact that he described it as merely a \u201cnoise demonstration.\u201d But perhaps what\u2019s most egregious is that Levine frames it as though the officer \u201cdrew his weapon\u201d <em>first<\/em> which then prompted \u201cone of the activists\u201d to fire an AR-15. But Song isn\u2019t an \u201cactivist.\u201d He is a convict, an attempted murderer. Levine\u2019s framing suggests some self-defense element \u2014 a defense leftists are spreading on social media. <\/p>\n<p>Then of course there is the other evidence that was presented to jurors who ultimately voted to convict Song. Song proposed freeing the detainees at the facility and told members of the Antifa cell they should \u201cwear black bloc and bring rifles, because he (Song) wasn\u2019t going to be arrested\u201d during a July 3 \u201cgear check,\u201d according to DOJ. Evidence further showed, according to the DOJ, that \u201csome of the defendants attended a peaceful daytime protest at Prairieland on July 4 \u2014 without the gear they brought that night \u2014 and that they reported back to other defendants details regarding security at the facility.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to the DOJ, the defendants purposely dressed in dark clothing to both conceal their identities and \u201caid and abet those members engaged in illegal acts by making members indistinguishable from one another to law enforcement.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>The defendants brought 11 firearms in total and conducted \u201creconnaissance and discussed what to bring to the riot, including firearms \u2026\u201d the DOJ press release states.<\/p>\n<p>Much like the jurors decided, a group that conducted reconnaissance, coordinated equipment, brought rifles and body armor, discussed freeing detainees, shot a police officer, and had one member convicted on attempted murder was not merely at a \u201cprotest\u201d that \u201cturned violent.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Antifa militants ambushed ICE in Texas, armed and violent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":2618354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Screenshot-2026-06-23-at-11.20.52-PM-scaled-e1782271357842-1024x577.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[3802,6286,4542],"class_list":["post-2618353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-antifa","tag-assassination","tag-protest"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Screenshot-2026-06-23-at-11.20.52-PM-scaled-e1782271357842-1024x577.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2618353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2618353"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2618353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2618357,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2618353\/revisions\/2618357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2618354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2618353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2618353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2618353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}