Two 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.
Illinois 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 “left-wing terrorists” in videos he posted to millions of viewers.
It appears to be the first defamation suit related to the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown filed against a member of the administration’s unofficial team of MAGA influencers, a corps of creators who amplify the government’s 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 “serve as a mouthpiece for the government.”
Johnson 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 “new media” 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.
The lawsuit described Johnson’s content as “political combat dressed up as news.”
On 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’s 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.
Frankovich and Foody were among the crowd of protesters the day that Johnson arrived. They were standing in a designated “free speech” zone, when — without provocation, according to the complaint — several protestors were shoved, struck, forced to the ground and detained by agents.
In an interview with MS NOW, Frankovich said he had come out to support his community, as he and his wife had done for weeks — 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.
“These are exactly the kind of people that we want to be pissing off … It’s your tears that keep us going,” Johnson says in one.
In 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 “left-wing terrorists arrested for attacking police officers and ICE officers.”
“All of this was false, which Mr. Johnson knew,” the complaint says.
“I 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,” 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 “domestic terrorists” 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’s posts and the comments that followed. He said Johnson’s audience was calling him an antifa leader, speculating about his identity and “trying to find me and stop me.” Comments in the complaint included calls to torture, shoot and kill the detained protestors.
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DHS turned a photo of Frankovich being detained into a recruitment poster.
“FAFO” — short for “fuck around and find out,” an acronym popular with the far right — the DHS caption read, above a photo of Frankovich, his distinctive tattoos visible, in zip ties.
“We will NOT allow violent activist [sic] to lay hands on our law enforcement,” it continued.
Below the photo it said: “JOIN.ICE.GOV.”
Frankovich 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.
“Being assaulted and detained in a hellhole was itself traumatizing,” Frankovich said. “Then, for several days later, to see myself used in propaganda to recruit additional ICE agents to continue to brutalize my community?”
Frankovich called it “disgusting.”
“You shouldn’t get to lie about me,” he said.
The lawsuit is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
Brandy Zadrozny is a senior enterprise reporter for MS NOW.
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