Peaceful Protestors Are Facing Decades in Prison - Inside the Prairieland Trial
Opening Arguments
Opening Arguments Media LLC
4.3 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 13 April 2026
⏱️ 63 minutes
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Summary
OA1252 - Just one month ago, nine people were convicted in a Texas federal court for their participation in a protest outside the Prairieland ICE facility in a first-ever prosecution in which the Department of Justice claimed that support for so-called “Antifa” constituted “material support for terrorism.” What can we learn from the plight of the Prairieland defendants about how the Trump administration is punishing dissent, and where do things go from here? We are joined by Ron, a community member who attended the trial, and Prairieland defense attorney Xavier de Janon of the People’s Law Collective and National Lawyers Guild for their unique perspectives on this important case.
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“Support the Prairieland Defendants” (DFW Support Committee website)
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Superseding indictment with material support for terrorism charges (filed 12/10/2025)
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‘“Exclusive: FBI Files Counter Government’s Argument in Texas “Antifa” Trial,” Adam Federman, In These Times (3/26/2026)
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“Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence (NPSM-7)”, The White House, September 25, 2025
Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's not about the convictions. |
| 0:05.0 | It's about quashing resistance, opposition, movement, and dissent. |
| 0:14.0 | How he makes money is researching leftists trying to frame anything they're doing as anti-government terrorism. |
| 0:34.5 | Hello and welcome to opening arguments. |
| 0:36.2 | This is episode 1252. I'm Thomas Smith. And in a moment, |
| 0:40.1 | I'll be joined by Matt Cameron. It is Monday. So normally might be a Janessa episode, but we're doing |
| 0:45.6 | a little change-up because Matt and I are going to be speaking with two people with knowledge of |
| 0:50.3 | the Prairieland case. Now, we've talked a bit about this before. I am still as confused as ever |
| 0:57.2 | at how this went down. This was, of course, the successful prosecution of multiple people based on |
| 1:03.9 | them being, I don't know, Antifa terrorists and doing anything in connection with someone who did |
| 1:09.5 | something in the name of Antifa. |
| 1:11.6 | It's so confusing. And I think that's because it doesn't make any sense would be why that is. |
| 1:16.3 | But we're going to be joined by Ron, who is a community member who attended the trial, |
| 1:20.5 | and Javier de Hanoon of the People's Law Collective and National Lawyers Guild. |
| 1:25.6 | I'm hoping they can explain the inexplicable here, |
| 1:28.2 | but I don't know. This thing is outrageous. The story is outrageous. It is not at all getting enough |
| 1:33.0 | attention. So I'm really glad we're doing this and there's more to be said and covered about this. |
| 1:39.1 | So I'll throw us to our first break here. And then we're going to be on speaking about this disaster, |
| 1:45.6 | this miscarriage of justice, what went on, how did it go from eyes and ears inside the trial itself? |
| 1:51.9 | All right, if you'd like to support the show, hey, please share it. Number one, share this. |
| 1:55.5 | It is important that people know about this prayer. It's just crazy to me. I don't understand it. |
| 1:59.9 | To share the show, support the show patreon.com slash law. If you just crazy to me. I don't understand it. To share the show, support |
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