Trump Made Political Beliefs Terrorism Indicators, Then Agents Obtained Union Financial Records

The Agent, the Recorder and Trump's Directive

On May 28, 2026, an undercover federal agent spent roughly two hours boxing and sparring in the gym of University Baptist Church, wearing a concealed recorder.¹ The agent spoke with participants and joined the group's Signal chat after training.¹ NPR reported that the church's interim pastor, Cody Sanders, learned of the operation through court disclosures and worried it would make people suspicious of newcomers.²

Homeland Security sent the agent.¹ In 2026 it invoked a directive Donald Trump had signed to open a Minneapolis investigation, and it obtained union wire-transfer records.³⁴ The directive, signed on September 25, 2025, made political beliefs part of the federal government's instructions for investigating domestic terrorism.⁵⁶ The charge is that Trump put political identity into the machinery of criminal investigation, while his administration used public accusations and arrest publicity to stigmatize people before courts decided guilt.⁵⁷⁸⁹

Trump signed the investigative directives and asked for funders' names himself.⁵⁷ The arrest publicity came from his officials. Attorney General Pamela Bondi, whom he appointed, made the announcement that a magistrate judge found violated a court order, and defense lawyers attributed two arrest-image publications to the White House account.¹⁰⁸⁹¹¹ His directives did not instruct officials to publish arrest images or announce arrests while cases were sealed.⁵¹²

The Investigation Reached Union Financial Records

Homeland Security Investigations opened the Minneapolis case, Project Whipple Shield, on February 11, 2026.³ Its case-opening report invokes Trump's directive and prioritizes identifying funding sources and organizational structures behind alleged violence, intimidation and obstruction of federal operations.³ The report also promises to safeguard peaceful demonstrators' rights.³

Then came the financial records. An HSI report records that agents served an administrative summons on Fedwire for transactions involving the Service Employees International Union and received the return on April 8.⁴ Its preliminary analysis identified transfers between national and local unions involving dues, strike payments, medical expenses and pension expenses.⁴ Those are categories of union financial activity, not findings that any payment financed a crime.⁴

A separate summons dated March 9, 2026, to the Clearing House Interbank Payments System demanded more than three years of records involving Communications Workers of America accounts, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, and the Sunrise Movement and its education fund.¹³ The period ran from January 1, 2023, through March 9, 2026, and the summons requested nondisclosure for an indefinite period.¹³

What the Directive Tells Investigators to Look For

The directive that investigation invoked is National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, or NSPM-7.⁵ Its findings cite Charlie Kirk's assassination, a shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas, and riots that the memorandum says caused more than $2 billion in damage.⁶ They also cite two attempts on Trump's life in 2024.⁶ The memorandum calls the violence an organized campaign rather than isolated incidents, and it names what it sees as the common threads.⁵

National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, "Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence," § 1⁶

Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.

The memorandum then turns that description into an instruction. It orders the attorney general to identify recurring motivations and other indicators common to organizations coordinating the acts it lists, to guide efforts to identify potential violence.⁵ This moved the description of an enemy into the instructions for finding one.

It also points investigators at money. The directive covers institutional and individual funders, officers and employees who sponsor or aid the criminal conduct it describes.⁵ It orders Treasury to trace illicit funding and directs the IRS to ensure tax-exempt entities are not financing political violence or domestic terrorism.⁵ Three days before signing it, Trump had designated Antifa a domestic terrorist organization and directed relevant agencies to investigate and dismantle what his order calls its illegal operations, including action against their funders.¹⁴

He Asked for Funders' Names

Thirteen days after signing the directive, Trump asked participants at a White House roundtable on Antifa to supply names.⁷

Remarks in a Roundtable Discussion on the "Antifa" Organization and an Exchange With Reporters⁷

Do you know the name of any of the funders? Do you know the names? Because if you do, I'd like you to give them to Kash or Pam.

FBI Director Kashyap Patel and Bondi were in the room; Trump also offered Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as a recipient.⁷ He said the funders probably included people he knew or dined with, and characterized their conduct as probably treasonous.⁷

Certainty was not required. Inviting information about Antifa's organization and funding, Trump told participants, "And even if you're not sure, let us know and we'll figure it out."⁷ When a questioner named Roy Singham, Trump answered, "Well, I don't know the name, but I would like to ask Pam to take a look at it."⁷

He did not stop at funders. Nick Sortor told him he knew the identity of a man whose burning flag he had taken, and Trump answered, "Give it to the Attorney General and let's start prosecutions."⁷ Trump said everyone went crazy when the flag began burning.⁷

A questioner then described a proposed $120,000 fee waiver in Austin for a No Kings anti-Trump rally.⁷ Trump replied: "We'll bring a lawsuit, do something."⁷ He asked Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to look into it, asserting that the city would not waive fees for a conservative rally.⁷ That request for Justice action concerned a proposed fee waiver for a rally against him, not an allegation of violence.⁷

The following day he identified the target as left-wing domestic terrorism and declared: "And we're looking for the people that are funding them, and those people are going to be just as guilty as the people that smack people over the head with a baseball bat."¹⁵

The Directive Became an Office and a Strategy

The directive became an office with a staff. The FBI's fiscal 2027 budget justification says the bureau oversees a newly created NSPM-7 Joint Mission Center with personnel from ten agencies.¹⁶ The budget expressly ties the center to Trump's memorandum and repeats its ideological description of violent conduct, including anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity, and extremism on migration, race and gender.¹⁶

TPM reported that records obtained by American Oversight showed ten IRS Criminal Investigation agents and three analysts detailed to the center.¹⁷ TPM also reported that, as of September 15, 2026, it knew of no attempt to revoke a charity's tax exemption for political reasons.¹⁷

In May 2026, Trump's counterterrorism strategy extended the approach from motivations to membership.¹² It lists violent left-wing extremists, including anarchists and anti-fascists, as one of three major terrorist categories.¹² It prioritizes identifying and neutralizing violent secular political groups whose ideology it describes as anti-American, "radically pro-transgender, and anarchist."¹² It directs agencies to use constitutionally available tools to map those groups domestically, identify their membership and international ties, and cripple their operations before they harm people.¹²

Bondi Broke a Sealing Order to Announce Arrests

The other half of the charge is what officials said in public before any court ruled.⁹⁸ On January 28, 2026, Bondi announced sixteen Minnesota arrests in a post that invoked President Trump and described the accused as rioters.⁸¹⁸ DOJ alleged serious conduct, including vehicle ramming, pepper spray, a brick and a chokehold.¹⁹

In the Flores case, Magistrate Judge Dulce J. Foster found that the post "directly violated a court order sealing the case" before initial appearances later that day.⁸ She found that the government had exposed Flores to a risk of doxxing and "generally thumbed its nose at the notion that defendants are innocent until proven guilty."⁸

When the government then sought protections for its own agents' identities, Foster rejected the broad request but prohibited public disclosure of personal identifying information belonging to parties, victims and witnesses.⁸ In the related Doyle case, Magistrate Judge Elsa M. Bullard denied a demand to gag the government and remove Bondi's posts, reasoning that rigorous jury selection could safeguard against potential prejudice.¹⁸

After Trump ordered lawful criminal or civil action against sanctuary jurisdictions in 2025, news accounts described Bondi announcing civil litigation against New York as charges; courts later dismissed suits against New York, Illinois and Minnesota before the government appealed.^{202122232425262728} DOJ invoked sanctuary policies while arresting Judge Hannah Dugan. Judge Lynn Adelman rejected her judicial-immunity claim; a jury acquitted her of concealment and convicted her of obstruction.²⁹³⁰³¹ She appealed on July 9, 2026, after Adelman declined to extend to her case a separate Fourth Circuit ruling narrowing the obstruction statute's reach.³²³³³⁴ Asked about Dugan's arrest on April 27, 2025, Trump said, "What happened there is terrible," then spoke of bringing the country back from criminals he said Biden had allowed in: a public response, not proof that he ordered her arrest.³⁵

A Felony Sandwich Case Ended in Acquittal

The government's charging account says Sean Charles Dunn confronted a federal officer in Washington on August 10, 2025, then threw a sandwich that struck the officer's chest.³⁶ Prosecutors charged a felony.⁹ Dunn's lawyers said local charges had first been declined and a grand jury later refused the felony indictment; prosecutors then pursued a misdemeanor.⁹

His lawyers alleged that agents ignored his attempt to surrender voluntarily and that Bondi portrayed his arrest and firing from Justice as a victory over the Deep State.⁹ They described armed agents raiding his studio apartment late on August 13, with professional videographers, and the White House publishing the edited arrest video.⁹ The judge deferred their motion and never decided those allegations. On November 7, 2025, the court entered a judgment of acquittal on the Class A misdemeanor.³⁷ On August 25, 2025, after Dunn had been charged, Trump ordered federal charges and pretrial detention for Washington arrestees whenever possible; the order states the enforcement posture that followed.³⁸⁹

In a separate Minnesota case, outside the sixteen in the January 28 announcement, Nekima Levy-Armstrong's lawyer told the court that Noem posted an arrest photograph and the White House then published an altered version that made her appear to cry and darkened her face.¹¹¹⁹ In the same February 1 filing, he reported continuing death threats, without offering proof that the photograph caused them.¹¹

The Defense: Investigating Violence With Lawful Powers

The strongest defense is that Trump directed legitimate investigations of violence. NSPM-7 creates no new crime, targets specified criminal conduct and requires lawful implementation; the May strategy promises not to target Americans merely for disagreeing with the administration.⁵¹² Prosecutors have broad discretion, and Congress authorizes the attorney general to supervise federal litigation and to assign FBI officials to other work.^39404142

The government also reports results. On September 15, 2026, Patel told the Senate that Joint Mission Center efforts had produced more than 200 arrests and more than 250 indictments or judicial complaints.⁴³ He also credited the bureau with disrupting an alleged attack on the UFC Freedom 250 event and securing combined 450-year sentences for eight North Texas Antifa operatives who attacked the Prairieland ICE detention facility.⁴³ Those reported successes do not establish that using political beliefs as investigative indicators made them possible.

In Minneapolis, prosecutors defended the inquiries as tracing funds for physical blockades, stalking and assaults, and argued that the church operation investigated alleged federal crimes rather than immigration enforcement covered by a church-protection injunction.⁴⁴ Prosecutors also said the event was not church-sponsored and described Left Jab's physical training as including obstruction during arrests; the agent's report records a message advertising a future de-arrest training session.⁴⁴¹ They denied presenting the unions and other organizations on an association chart as conspirators.⁴⁴ Their September 10 filing added that Operation Keyhole, Whipple Shield's funding vehicle, dated to 2008 and supported unrelated criminal investigations.⁴⁵

Winning a constitutional challenge is also harder than showing a prosecution failed. Selective prosecution requires proof of discriminatory effect and discriminatory purpose.⁴⁶³⁹ A retaliatory-arrest claim generally requires showing that officers lacked probable cause.⁴⁷ The exception is objective evidence that they arrested the plaintiff but not people in a similar situation who had not engaged in the same protected speech.⁴⁷ David Jose Huerta's case shows the gap: the affidavit alleged physical obstruction during a judicially authorized search, but inferred conspiracy from a remark and the agent's belief that Huerta's employer had no office within walking distance, while acknowledging that he did not know where Huerta worked.⁴⁸ Prosecutors replaced the felony conspiracy charge with a misdemeanor, then sought dismissal; the July 27, 2026 order, permanent on August 27, ended the prosecution without deciding that the arrest was illegal.⁴⁹⁵⁰ An acquittal proves neither discriminatory selection nor absence of probable cause.³⁹⁴⁷

These explanations address the claimed criminal purpose. The prosecutors acknowledged that the financial records had minimal, if any, relevance to the indictment.⁴⁴ Agents still obtained SEIU wire-transfer records, demanded more than three years of other union and advocacy-group records, and recorded a session inside the church gym.⁴¹³¹ Lawful authority explains investigating actual crimes. It does not answer why political and religious identity became investigative indicators, why Trump sought Justice action over a questioner's complaint about an anti-Trump rally's proposed fee waiver, or why Bondi announced arrests in violation of a sealing order.⁵⁷⁸

The Pattern and the Case for Impeachment

Article II requires faithful execution of the laws and provides removal for high crimes and misdemeanors.⁵¹ The precedents cut both ways. In 1974 the House Judiciary Committee adopted an abuse-of-power article against President Nixon that included misuse of investigative agencies for purposes unrelated to lawful enforcement or national security.⁵² The vote was 28 to 10, and the full House did not vote.⁵² In 1923 the House rejected impeachment of Attorney General Harry Daugherty for insufficient grounds to believe allegations of improper prosecutions and non-enforcement; the accuser had refused to testify.⁵³ In 1868 the Senate never voted on the speech-based article against Andrew Johnson.⁵⁴ It acquitted him on a failure-to-execute article, 35 guilty votes to 19 not guilty, short of two-thirds.⁵⁴

The charge is abuse of power, and Trump's own documents carry it. He signed instructions connecting political and religious beliefs to terrorism investigations, and he asked for funders' names.⁵⁶⁷ Homeland Security invoked his order while collecting union finances and recording a training session in a church gym.³⁴¹ A government can pursue violence without using political and religious identity to describe the threat, and it can prosecute crimes without treating an arrest as proof of guilt. Those are the standards this conduct failed.