{ "archive_path": "archive/1790967621.30139", "base_url": "www.ms.now/news/benny-johnson-sued-defamation-ice-videos-protesters-terrorists", "basename": "benny-johnson-sued-defamation-ice-videos-protesters-terrorists", "bookmarked_date": "2026-10-02 19:00", "canonical": { "archive_org_path": "https://web.archive.org/web/www.ms.now/news/benny-johnson-sued-defamation-ice-videos-protesters-terrorists", "dom_path": "output.html", "favicon_path": "favicon.ico", "git_path": "git/", "google_favicon_path": "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.ms.now", "headers_path": "headers.json", "htmltotext_path": "htmltotext.txt", "index_path": "index.html", "media_path": "media/", "mercury_path": "mercury/content.html", "pdf_path": "output.pdf", "readability_path": "readability/content.html", "screenshot_path": "screenshot.png", "singlefile_path": "singlefile.html", "warc_path": "warc/", "wget_path": "www.ms.now/news/benny-johnson-sued-defamation-ice-videos-protesters-terrorists.html" }, "domain": "www.ms.now", "extension": "", "hash": "1HAX5DMBSFGQEDRK3V93", "history": { "archive_org": [], "dom": [], "favicon": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--output", "favicon.ico", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.ms.now" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-10-02T19:15:13.305565+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "favicon.ico", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790967621.30139", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-02T19:15:12.441202+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "git": [], "headers": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--head", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.ms.now/news/benny-johnson-sued-defamation-ice-videos-protesters-terrorists" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-10-02T19:15:13.725470+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "headers.json", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790967621.30139", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-02T19:15:13.319275+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "htmltotext": [], "media": [], "mercury": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/@postlight/parser/cli.js", "https://www.ms.now/news/benny-johnson-sued-defamation-ice-videos-protesters-terrorists" ], "cmd_version": "1.0.0", "end_ts": "2026-10-02T19:15:32.941819+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "mercury", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790967621.30139", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-02T19:15:28.700587+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "pdf": [], "readability": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/readability-extractor/readability-extractor", "/tmp/tmpbj2aqn0h", "https://www.ms.now/news/benny-johnson-sued-defamation-ice-videos-protesters-terrorists" ], "cmd_version": "0.0.11", "end_ts": "2026-10-02T19:15:28.686672+00:00", "index_texts": [ "News\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tJohnson accompanied top DHS officials last year to an ICE protest, where he pointed out \u201cleft-wing terrorists\u201d for his millions of followers across social media.\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBenny Johnson speaks at a makeshift memorial for right-wing activist and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on Sept. 19, 2025 in Phoenix.\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCharly Triballeau / AFP via Getty Images\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\nOct. 2, 2026, 10:01 AM EDT\n\n\n\n\n\nTwo people detained outside a Chicago-area immigration detention center last year are suing right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson for defamation, saying he falsely portrayed them as violent extremists who assaulted federal officers.\n\n\n\nIllinois residents Kyle Frankovich, a data scientist at Harvard University, and Maureen Foody, a contract court reporter, filed the lawsuit Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. They said they were detained while protesting peacefully outside the Broadview detention center, but that Johnson knowingly framed them as criminals and \u201cleft-wing terrorists\u201d in videos he posted to millions of viewers.It appears to be the first defamation suit related to the Trump administration\u2019s aggressive immigration crackdown filed against a member of the administration\u2019s unofficial team of MAGA influencers, a corps of creators who amplify the government\u2019s framing of left-wing protesters as dangerous agitators in exchange for access that draws online audiences and shapes the conservative news cycle.Karianne Jones, a lawyer at Evergreen Legal Strategies, one of the firms representing Frankovich and Foody, told MS NOW that the lawsuit is a way to hold accountable people who \u201cserve as a mouthpiece for the government.\u201dJohnson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Johnson, a former conservative writer for BuzzFeed who was fired for plagiarism, remade himself as a right-wing activist, creating content for Turning Point USA and then his own online video channels. He is one of several creators the second Trump administration has leaned on to promote its narratives and celebrate its agenda. In 2025, Johnson was invited to sit in a special \u201cnew media\u201d seat in the White House briefing room and brought on ride-alongs with Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. He was part of a gaggle of influencers given special access to document ICE operations and anti-ICE protests, who parroted Trump administration claims that left-wing domestic terrorists were waging a nationwide campaign of violence against federal agents.\n\n\n\n\n\nThe lawsuit described Johnson\u2019s content as \u201cpolitical combat dressed up as news.\u201dOn Oct. 3, 2025, Johnson accompanied then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and former Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino to the Broadview ICE facility, which had become a site of escalating confrontations between agents and the citizens, journalists and local politicians who gathered there to protest the Trump administration\u2019s anti-immigration campaign in Chicago and the conditions inside the jail. Videos from outside Broadview had gone viral, showing agents shoving protesters and firing tear gas and pepper balls, seemingly without justification.\n\n\n\nFrankovich and Foody were among the crowd of protesters the day that Johnson arrived. They were standing in a designated \u201cfree speech\u201d zone, when \u2014 without provocation, according to the complaint \u2014 several protestors were shoved, struck, forced to the ground and detained by agents.\n\n\n\nIn an interview with MS NOW, Frankovich said he had come out to support his community, as he and his wife had done for weeks \u2014 handing out whistles, providing security for families at schools and showing up at Broadview.The documentary-style videos Johnson posted to X, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Rumble show the podcaster seemingly taunting the protestors as federal agents stood between them.\n\n\n\n\u201cThese are exactly the kind of people that we want to be pissing off \u2026 It\u2019s your tears that keep us going,\u201d Johnson says in one.\n\n\n\nIn the next scene, Johnson shows around 10 detained protesters, including Frankovich and Foody, lined up along a guardrail outside the Broadview detention center, their hands bound by zip ties. He refers to them as \u201cleft-wing terrorists arrested for attacking police officers and ICE officers.\u201d\u201cAll of this was false, which Mr. Johnson knew,\u201d the complaint says.\u201cI 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,\u201d Johnson captioned one of many videos from that day posted to X.The post was viewed 1.7 million times and drew hundreds of comments calling the detained protesters \u201cdomestic terrorists\u201d and calling for their deportation and prosecution. Johnson shared at least seven posts about his day at Broadview, which garnered millions of collective views.Frankovich and Foody were not charged with any crime. After being detained for around eight hours, which Frankovich described as traumatizing, they were released without charges a half-mile from the jail, according to the complaint.After his release, Frankovich said he was shaken when he saw Johnson\u2019s posts and the comments that followed. He said Johnson\u2019s audience was calling him an antifa leader, speculating about his identity and \u201ctrying to find me and stop me.\u201d Comments in the complaint included calls to torture, shoot and kill the detained protestors.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDHS turned a photo of Frankovich being detained into a recruitment poster.\u201cFAFO\u201d \u2014 short for \u201cfuck around and find out,\u201d an acronym popular with the far right \u2014 the DHS caption read, above a photo of Frankovich, his distinctive tattoos visible, in zip ties.\n\n\n\n\u201cWe will NOT allow violent activist [sic] to lay hands on our law enforcement,\u201d it continued.\n\n\n\nBelow the photo it said: \u201cJOIN.ICE.GOV.\u201d\n\n\n\nFrankovich is also one of dozens of U.S. citizens and legal residents who have filed recent complaints to DHS over Operation Midway Blitz, alleging immigration agents used excessive force and detained people illegally, among other harms.\n\n\n\n\u201cBeing assaulted and detained in a hellhole was itself traumatizing,\u201d Frankovich said. \u201cThen, for several days later, to see myself used in propaganda to recruit additional ICE agents to continue to brutalize my community?\u201dFrankovich called it \u201cdisgusting.\u201d\u201cYou shouldn\u2019t get to lie about me,\u201d he said.The lawsuit is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\n\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tBrandy Zadrozny\t\t\n\t\t\n\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tBrandy Zadrozny is a senior enterprise reporter for MS NOW." ], "output": "readability", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790967621.30139", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-02T19:15:26.290919+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "screenshot": [], "singlefile": [], "title": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.ms.now/news/benny-johnson-sued-defamation-ice-videos-protesters-terrorists" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-10-02T19:15:26.283415+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "MAGA podcaster Benny Johnson sued for defamation over ICE ride-along videos calling protesters \u2018terrorists\u2019", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790967621.30139", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-02T19:15:26.231624+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "wget": [ { "cmd": [ "wget", "--no-verbose", "--adjust-extension", "--convert-links", "--force-directories", "--span-hosts", "--no-parent", "-e", "robots=off", "--reject=js,mjs,woff,woff2,ttf,otf,eot,mp4,m4v,mov,webm,ogv,mkv,avi,flv", "--timeout=120", "--restrict-file-names=windows", "--page-requisites", "--user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) wget/GNU Wget 1.21.3", "--compression=auto", "--timestamping", "https://www.ms.now/news/benny-johnson-sued-defamation-ice-videos-protesters-terrorists" ], "cmd_version": "GNU Wget 1.21.3", "end_ts": "2026-10-02T19:15:26.220280+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "www.ms.now/news/benny-johnson-sued-defamation-ice-videos-protesters-terrorists.html", "pwd": "/data/archive/1790967621.30139", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-02T19:15:13.734383+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ] }, "icons": null, "is_archived": true, "is_static": false, "latest": { "archive_org": null, "dom": null, "favicon": "favicon.ico", "git": null, "media": null, "pdf": null, "screenshot": null, "singlefile": null, "title": "MAGA podcaster Benny Johnson sued for defamation over ICE ride-along videos calling protesters \u2018terrorists\u2019", "warc": null, "wget": "www.ms.now/news/benny-johnson-sued-defamation-ice-videos-protesters-terrorists.html" }, "link_dir": "/data/archive/1790967621.30139", "newest_archive_date": "2026-10-02T19:15:28.700587+00:00", "num_failures": 0, "num_outputs": 6, "oldest_archive_date": "2026-10-02T19:15:12.441202+00:00", "path": "/news/benny-johnson-sued-defamation-ice-videos-protesters-terrorists", "schema": "Link", "scheme": "https", "snapshot_id": "d5b42e8f-a494-4128-8dcd-ec94d61b2259", "sources": [ "/data/sources/1790967621-import.txt" ], "tags": ",drudge,war-wiki,pool", "tags_str": "drudge,war-wiki,pool", "timestamp": "1790967621.30139", "title": "MAGA podcaster Benny Johnson sued for defamation over ICE ride-along videos calling protesters \u2018terrorists\u2019", "updated": "2026-10-02T19:15:12.440808+00:00", "updated_date": "2026-10-02 19:15", "url": "https://www.ms.now/news/benny-johnson-sued-defamation-ice-videos-protesters-terrorists" }