Antifa activist who called for ‘armed’ resistance to ICE asks Supreme Court for release
by Stephen Dinan · The Washington TimesA self-professed antifa agitator who called for outing and harassing ICE officers “at the barrel of a gun” asked the Supreme Court on Friday to order his release from pretrial detention, telling the justices he’s not a real threat to society.
Kyle Wagner was arrested amid the Trump administration’s antifa crackdown this year and was charged with cyberstalking and making threats.
Prosecutors asked that he be held in detention pending his trial. A federal district court declined, but an appeals court reversed that decision.
People were interested in these podcasts
Now Mr. Wagner wants the justices to unlock his jail cell.
“Each day Wagner is detained, he is deprived of his liberty despite his presumed innocence. Wagner is away from his family; unable to earn an income; and unable to fully participate in trial preparation,” his lawyers wrote in their petition to the court.
Mr. Wagner was charged in February after angry social media posts where he called for action against the immigration enforcement surge into Minnesota.
He urged “armed and ready” resistance to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, telling followers to get “guns” and “stop these” people.
He also called on followers to expose the identities of the federal agents involved.
Advertisement Advertisement
“We want to know who they are. We will identify every single one of them, and we will prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. If it has to be done at the barrel of a gun, then let us have a little [expletive] fun,” he wrote in a message highlighted by prosecutors.
Mr. Wagner, who posted on Instagram as kaos.follows, cuts a distinctive figure with a bald head and extensive tattoos, including a red RESISTANCE tattoo across his chest and dark tattoos on his cheek.
He doesn’t own any weapons — he said he gave them up in 2022 — and a judge said his lack of a prior criminal record meant he wasn’t enough of a danger to demand pretrial detention.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision.
The legal issue before the Supreme Court is the standard that the 6th Circuit applied in reviewing the case.
Advertisement Advertisement
Mr. Wagner’s legal team said the 6th Circuit is the only one that calls for its judges to look at all the evidence afresh. Other circuits don’t dig that deeply into the facts, instead looking to see only if the lower court’s ruling was reasonable.
“By re-weighing the evidence itself, and giving no deference to the district court’s assessment of the relevant factors, the Sixth Circuit highlighted the error of de novo review,” Mr. Wagner’s lawyers argued.
Contact the author
Stephen Dinan
Follow author updates Follow Click to follow. Manage followed authors