Free Speech

FEF Files Complaint Against Department of Justice on Behalf of Austin Franco

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FEF Files Complaint Against Department of Justice on Behalf of Austin Franco

The Free Expression Foundation has filed a civil rights administrative complaint against DoJ official Leo Terrell on behalf of Austin Franco — and you can help!

As explained in the full complaint below, Mr. Terrell sought to blacklist Mr. Franco from all future employment. The reason? The young college student exercised his Constitutional freedom to not associate. One of this current government’s special ironies has been the repeated violations of civil rights by the DoJ’s Civil Rights Division.

Mr. Terrell used both his personal and government X accounts to harass Mr. Franco and to call on the public to make him “permanently unemployable.” The United States Supreme Court has  condemned this exact sort of government blacklisting in Bantam Books v. Sullivan and NRA of America v. Vullo.

One of the key difficulties in attaining redress against federal officials for violations of Constitutional rights is the statutory framework. 42 U.S.C. § 1983 provides an avenue to sue state officials for Constitutional harms, but no parallel route exists against federal officials like Mr. Terrell. While a plaintiff may bring a complaint in what is known as a Bivens action, the Supreme Court hollowed out the First Amendment aspect of this method in their 2022 Egbert v. Boule decision.

The best forum, accordingly, to seek redress for Mr. Franco is a civil rights administrative complaint with the Office of the Inspector General. Here is where FEF’s supporters come in:

  • Share the complaint on social media
  • Contact your Congressional representatives and ask them to put pressure on the Office of the Inspector General to investigate the complaint

Be professional in your communications, but communicate. It is your right to petition the government!

See the full text of the civil rights complaint here (PDF LINK WILL OPEN IN A NEW TAB).

With you in the defense of freedom,

FEF FILES AN AMICUS BRIEF IN THE VIRGINIA TIKI-TORCH CASE

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On June 9, 2026, The Free Expression Foundation filed an Amicus Curiae brief in the Virginia Court of Appeals in the Invictus v. Commonwealth appeal, arguing that in light of settled First Amendment precedent, Augustus Sol Invictus’s conviction under Virginia Code § 18.2-423.01 should be set aside.  Commenting on this case, FEF’s President Glen Allen stated that: “Mr. Invictus’s conviction under this politically-motivated prosecution is an affront to our First Amendment traditions on multiple levels. He should never have been prosecuted.  Having been prosecuted, he should never have been convicted. FEF supports the decisive nullification of Mr. Invictus’s conviction and his prompt return to freedom.”

The basic facts of Mr. Invictus’s conviction are these. On April 3, 2023 – nearly six years after the date of Mr. Invictus’s alleged offense – a newly elected prosecutor sought and obtained a grand jury indictment charging Invictus with violating Virginia Code § 18.2-423.01, Virginia’s “burning object” statute, which makes it a felony offense to publicly burn an object “in a manner having a direct tendency to place another person in reasonable fear or apprehension of death or bodily injury” and “with the intent of intimidating any person or group of persons.” This section is found in the same part of the Virginia Code as § 18.2-423, which makes it a felony to burn a cross on the property of another, a highway, or a public place with intent to intimidate any person or group. Section 18.2-423 was famously challenged in the landmark Supreme Court case of Virginia v. Black, which affirmed that while cross-burning can be banned when intended to intimidate, the statute’s provision treating the burning itself as proof of intent is unconstitutional.

Mr. Invictus was a participant in a march through the University of Virginia campus on the night of August 11, 2017 as part of the wider Unite the Right protest against the planned removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee located in a Charlottesville park which at the time bore Lee’s name. The August 11 march was widely publicized after it occurred, in large part due to the marchers’ use of tiki torches. Mr. Invictus carried one such tiki torch and filmed himself as he peacefully demonstrated alongside his fellow marchers.

Calls to prosecute the tiki torch marchers began almost immediately following the conclusion of the march. In September 2019, Anne Coughlin, a law professor at the University of Virginia, argued in a local publication that the marchers should be prosecuted under § 18.2-423.01. In the same article, Robert Tracci, the then-Albemarle County commonwealth’s attorney who had jurisdiction over the case, explained that § 18.2-423.01 was likely inapplicable to the carrying of tiki torches in the same manner as the August 11 marchers. And because, as Mr. Tracci put it, “a prosecutor must faithfully apply the law and uphold ethical standards in all cases,” the commonwealth attorney’s office declined at the time to prosecute the torch marchers unless there was evidence they committed a crime such as “malicious bodily injury, illegal use of tear gas, [or] assault and battery.”

But in 2020 the current Albemarle County commonwealth’s attorney, Mr. James Hingeley, was elected. Mr. Hingeley claims he was inspired to run for office because of Mr. Tracci’s refusal to prosecute the marchers for the carrying of tiki torches, and as part of his campaign Mr. Hingeley promised to “prosecute these people.” On April 3, 2023—approximately sixty-eight months after the Unite the Right protests—Mr. Invictus was indicted on one count of violating § 18.2-423.01. Mr. Invictus was convicted on this count on October 11, 2024. On January 8, 2025, he was sentenced to five years in prison, with all but nine and a half months to be served by a period of probation.

FEF strongly believes Mr. Invictus’s conviction cannot be squared with First Amendment doctrine. Indeed, Virginia’s “burning object” statute has come up for review by the United States Supreme Court at a time when the statute  encompassed only cross burnings. In Virginia v. Black (2003) the Court held that “the First Amendment permits Virginia to outlaw cross burnings done with the intent to intimidate because burning a cross is a particularly virulent form of intimidation.” In reaching this holding, the Court discussed the history of cross burnings in America and concluded that “often the cross burner intends that the recipients of the message fear for their lives” and that “when a cross burning is used to intimidate, few if any messages are more powerful.” This conclusion followed from the Court’s longstanding “true threats” doctrine, which allows punishment for “statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.”

The Court, however, struck down the Virginia statute’s requirement that “[a]ny such burning of a cross shall be prima facie evidence of an intent to intimidate a person or group of persons.” This was because, while history demonstrated that cross burning could be done with the intent to threaten, this was not the only reason someone would burn a cross; rather, cross burning could also be used as “a statement of ideology, a symbol of group solidarity,” or for artistic purposes. It is FEF’s position that because these latter examples of cross burning carried out without  intention to intimidate amount to a form of expression that could, in the words of the Court in Connick v. Myers (1983),  “be fairly considered as relating to any matter of political, social, or other concern to the community,” such cross burning would occupy the “highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values” and would be “entitled to special protection.” The Black Court seemed to agree, noting that “[b]urning a cross at a political rally would almost certainly be protected expression.” And so, it is also FEF’s position that peacefully carrying a properly lit tiki torch at a political rally must also be First Amendment protected expression.

As FEF explains in its amicus brief, at trial Virginia seemed to concede the legality of merely carrying a lit tiki torch at the August 11 march. Nor was it alleged that Mr. Invictus committed an assault, a battery, or some other alleged crime apart from the offense related to the “burning object.” Indeed, in his closing argument to the jury, the assistant commonwealth’s attorney stated it was “not illegal to walk through the grounds in a procession with lit torches and chanting.” Rather, the Commonwealth’s theory of the case was that Mr. Invictus violated Virginia Code § 18.2-423.01 when, along with the other marchers, he allegedly surrounded and outnumbered counter-protestors who had arrived earlier at the march’s end point to disrupt the planned speaker.

FEF does not believe this theory can be sustained, and its amicus brief argues forcefully that under current precedent it cannot be illegal for one group of protestors to simply outnumber a competing group, that a group of demonstrators cannot circumscribe the scope of competing demonstrators’ speech and expressive conduct in a public square by preemptively positioning themselves at the center of the public square, and that an individual’s mere presence at the site of First Amendment protected assembly is insufficient to support a conviction based upon a concerted action theory where sporadic acts of violence were alleged to occur by persons other than that individual.

In arguing that Mr. Invictus’s conviction should be set aside, FEF’s brief recounts the facts described in the “Independent Review of the 2017 Protest Events in Charlottesville, Virginia,” also known as the “Heaphy Report.” The Heaphy Report establishes that while the tiki torch march’s organizers sought to avoid contact with counter-protestors and took actions to that effect, nonetheless Antifa and its affiliates deliberately sought to disrupt the march. FEF also draws attention to video Mr. Invictus personally captured on the night of August 11 which shows the entirety of the march from his perspective and conclusively shows Mr. Invictus did not counsel or encourage violence, nor did he ever engage in violence himself or abet violence.

A successful appeal would not make Mr. Invictus whole for the ordeal the Commonwealth of Virginia has put him through, but it would vindicate his First Amendment rights and the First Amendment rights of similarly situated individuals going forward. The Free Expression Foundation thanks Mr. Invictus’s attorney Terrell Roberts III for his stalwart representation of Mr. Invictus, and Virginia attorney Andy Bisulca for sponsoring FEF’s pro hac vice filing of its brief.

FEF’s amicus brief in this case is the latest in its efforts to assist those unjustly prosecuted and subjected to lawfare in the wake of the Unite the Right rally. FEF previously filed an amicus brief before the United States Supreme Court in another Unite the Right-related case, Balogh v. City of Charlottesville, and in United States v. Miselis, a UTR-related case in the United States Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Our continued advocacy for the free expression rights of political dissidents is only possible with your continued assistance. Tax deductible donations may be made here. Thank you.

Read the amicus brief before the Virginia Court of Appeals here

Review of The Last Men and their tendency for liberal politics

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The Last Men: Liberalism and the Death of Masculinity
Charles Cornish-Dale
Passage Publishing. 2025 

“A cross between Jordan Peterson and The Most Interesting Man In The World, Nationalist blends the sensational with the scientific. Dr. Peterson shot to fame telling young men to clean their rooms; Mr. Nationalist is busy telling men to clean up their diets.”
—John MacGhlionn, The Federalist

“A man’s testosterone levels may be the difference between a life of sex and success and a life spent rotting in a fetid basement, playing video games and eating chicken tenders heated up in the microwave by Mum,” explains Charles Cornish-Dale is his fascinating yet slightly frightening book The Last Men: Liberalism and the Death of Masculinity. He goes on to introduce us to the hikikimori, Japanese “herbivore men” who have done exactly this. Completely lacking in any kind of drive whatsoever, they have simply dropped out of life. This phenomenon, argues Cornish-Dale, who is more commonly known as “Raw Egg Nationalist,” is increasingly being seen in the West.

The West has become an anti-masculine society. Cornish-Dale reminds us that Francis Fukuyama’s infamous book title The End of History, which people quote as hubristically implying that the world’s conflicts are over, was actually The End of History and the Last Man, and he notes that it actually alludes to something particularly poignant. Man has always built a society in which he can engage in what the Greeks called thymos; the ability to thrust. However, with the key political battles won there is no longer room to do this. Instead, we see the victory of the submissive slave who will conform to the system. There is nothing left to strive for, so what are men supposed to do now?

This, argues Cornish-Dale, is the unfortunate situation that the “the last men” find themselves in. Indeed, there are many ways in which modern society is actively reducing their testosterone levels; actively making them into lesser men. Studies find that average male testosterone levels are falling year on year, contributing to a growing fertility crisis among Western males. A significant contributor to this is endocrine disruptors which are found in plastics and numerous other industrial products by which we are increasingly surrounded. Cornish-Dale points out that Alex Jones was roundly mocked in 2014 for ranting that certain herbicides were causing frogs to become gay. However, it appears that he was correct, and the same is true in humans. Certain industrial products do actually appear to be feminising men and so rendering them less heterosexual and less fertile. Cornish-Dale presents evidence that the epidemic of transgenderism in recent decades might possibly be related to endocrine disruptors.

There are also very specific industrial products that have been shown to interfere with masculinisation. Diethylstilbestrol (DES) was given to millions of pregnant women in the mid-twentieth century who had a history of miscarriages. It may have stopped them from miscarrying but it had a devastating impact on their sons: “Exposure to DES in utero has been linked to terrible reproductive abnormalities in both sexes, including undescended testicles and micropenises in boys . . .” A class of chemicals known as phthalates are used in many plastic products. They lead to reduced semen quality and lower testosterone. Cornish-Dale notes that if you use these plastics to store food then they will leak into the food and, by extension, into you and they can be transferred to a baby via breast milk. At one point in the book, Cornish-Dale notes that micro-plastics are in all of us and all parts of our bodies including the “meat,” that is within the tissue of the penis.

Naturally, argues Cornish-Dale, this has a serious impact on politics. If men are low in testosterone, they lack not just sex drive but any kind of drive—the two are intimately connected. They become docile, permitting replacement migration, but this can never work because it doesn’t take long before testosterone begins to drop among the immigrants as they begin to be exposed to the same industrial chemicals. Also, observes Cornish-Dale, various liberal ideas, such as vegetarianism, cause a collapse in testosterone as well. The obesity epidemic, caused, in part, by a lack of exercise and the consumption of appalling food—in particular, highly processed food—further adds to this testosterone decline.

Cornish-Dale sets out a clear manifesto on what needs to be done, giving advice that reaches into minutiae of everyday life. Use wooden chopping boards; don’t use plastic ones. Don’t store food in plastic and for goodness sake don’t microwave food if it’s on a plastic plate because this will cause serious leakage of plastic into the food. Much of his advice is common sense: exercise, lift weights and eat meat. One of the problems with this area of research is that it is so often espoused by obvious fanatics; “gyms bros” and the like. The Last Men is popular-academic in style. It carefully and reasonably argues its case and fully references its assertions with copious academic studies.

As a person who has researched the causes of changes in political viewpoint across time in the West, I found The Last Men very persuasive. Male testosterone is in decline and this, surely, at least in part, helps to explain the feminised kind of men who, as studies show, tends towards liberal politics.

Jailed for Putting Up Legal and Truthful Stickers on Lamp Posts 

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For American readers what I am about to write about the mother country may sound unbelievable, but, incredibly, it is true. In 2024, a young signpost maker and father of one called Sam Melia was jailed for putting perfectly legal stickers on lamp posts.

The leader of the Hundred Hands campaign and activist in a group called Patriotic Alternative, the then 34-year-old had designed a series of anti-immigration stickers to call attention to the fact that the English will soon be a minority in their own country and that Pakistanis have a tendency to groom and rape English girls. It was determined that the stickers were perfectly legal, if “extreme,” an assertion which makes you wonder if England is genuinely governed by the rule of law.

However, Melia had a jokey Hitler poster in a garage which he used as a gym during Covid, and his wife owned a copy of a book by Sir Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s. Accordingly, it was decided that Melia must be motivated by a desire to “stir up racial hatred.” He was found guilty by a partially non-White jury and the judge made it clear that he would make an example of him.

One of the results of this Soviet-like show trial and imprisonment has been Melia’s poignant, fascinating and inspiring prison memoir Legal, Truthful, Guilty: Diary of a Political Prisoner. Beginning with the details of the “crimes” and the trial, Melia takes into the frankly jaw-dropping world of the English prison system. The first thing we realise is just how corrupt it is. The “screws,” though there are some good ones who are sympathetic to Melia’s plight (away from his pregnant wife and young daughter), seem to be, in effect, rather lazy people. They are perfectly content to permit the prisoners to run the prison, to develop their own hierarchy and even to sell drugs, as long as the situation doesn’t get too violent.

Socially skilled, and probably more intelligent than most of the prisoners on his wing, Melia is quite adept at climbing this hierarchy – in which the new currency is “vapes” – but, alas, they keep moving him to different wings or different prisons, so he has to start the process all over again. We also discover that almost everybody on the sex offender wing is Muslim but non-Muslims can, and do, sign up for special Eid feasts.

As a political prisoner, and one hoping for early release, Melia is subject to regular Maoist struggle sessions with a male social worker who is so deeply indoctrinated with Woke and so lacking in the ability to think that he and his type are concerned that Melia “thinks Black people aren’t White Britons.” The preceding, stresses Melia, is a genuine quote and he proves this by publishing the correspondence. Their aim is to “re-align Mr Melia’s mindset.” The chap from the anti-terrorist group “Prevent” concludes that Sam is no threat to anybody, but the torture of struggle sessions – in which Sam is logical and the man with power insanely tries to make Sam accept that black is white – must continue. At one point, the authorities are so cruel that they declare – though eventually change their minds – that his children cannot visit Melia in jail as his anti-Woke ideas might somehow lead a toddler and a baby into terrorism.

Melia’s story made me realise, more clearly than ever, how prison turns men into children. Having almost no agency, the slightest bit of power becomes extremely precious to your sense of self-worth and the smallest things matter hugely. Melia occupies his time making match-stick models and takes a massive amount of pride in them. Prisoners try to brag about their worldly success by displaying expensive tracksuits in their cells, just as children would show off their expensive and sought-after toys. You have to be careful, though, because some people in prison, like angry children, will destroy “anything nice.” The prison’s “mob” tends to control the canteen and uses this power to steal food for its members, such that ordinary prisoners are told that the hamburgers to which they are entitled have mysteriously already run out.

Melia muses that the problem with the British is that they are “coddled, fat, pacified and outwardly happy”, and the British are unlikely to seriously fight to get their country back until that is no longer the case. However, his memoir attests to just how self-defeating the system is. Melia is now regarded by many on the nationalist right as a political hero. He has been subjected to terrible psychological suffering – including a year on licence in which he was banned from all political activity and had to tell the authorities with whom he socialised as he was barred from meeting or contacting “far right” people – but the result is that he is more galvanized and prominent than ever.

Having read his book, I was left with many questions: How can they be so cruel? How can they be so unreasonable? My conclusion was that these people – so heavily invested in the regime – probably feel a bit like Eastern European government workers in the 1980s. On some level they know that something is about to change and it must not be allowed to change because, as happened in East Germany, the people will not easily forgive them for being the cowardly agents of a decadent tyranny.

My interview with Sam Melia can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me6vvWoUzL4&t=1s

How a Desire for Peace May Label Tucker Carlson a Foreign Agent

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Joseph McGraw of the Free Expression Foundation

Introduction

The dormant capabilities and vulnerabilities of the First Amendment face their greatest test in wartime. Recently, Tucker Carlson revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency intends to refer him to the Department of Justice to be charged for failing to register in accordance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). In a number of his latest broadcasts, the pundit warned that free speech may soon become a casualty of the war with Iran. According to Carlson, the threatened criminal referral arises out of his contact with a number of Iranian nationals in the leadup to the present conflict. While the exact nature of his contact is unknown, the government may allege that he acted on the request of these foreign principals to advocate against the war. The action, in all likelihood, serves as a pretense for quashing his criticism and threatening other commentators to stay in line.

In close parallel, Laura Loomer, prominent Carlson detractor and close advisor to President Donald Trump, alleges that the pundit took money from a variety of Middle Eastern countries including Saudi Arabia and Qatar. In any case, Loomer has been pushing for his criminal investigation since at least February 1, a full month before the strikes. On March 14 she bragged, “If Tucker Qatarlson (sic) gets charged for violating FARA…I’m taking credit,” and “You have no idea how relentless I have been in speaking to GOP reps and even reporting Tucker to law enforcement and the DoJ.”

At long last, it appears her badgering of administration officials manifested into concrete action to silence speech amid the worsening war with Iran. While the criminal referral is a shot across Carlson’s bow regarding his anti-war speech, the government retains several pathways to materialize the threat. His legal footing hinges on three questions: 1) Is mere contact with citizens of another country with whom the United States is contemplating war enough to trigger mandatory registration under the FARA? 2) Did Carlson act on the request of a foreign principal to lobby for peace with Iran? or 3) If Loomer’s allegations are true, would taking money from foreign governments trigger mandatory registration?

The Statute

Signed into law in 1938, the FARA originated under the auspices of curtailing the influence of National Socialist Germany among American citizens. In its present form, the law requires that individuals falling into the category of “foreign agent” make a registration statement pursuant to 22 U.S.C. § 612 and disclose their activities. Foreign agents are defined in § 611(c)(1) of the statute as:

1) Any person who acts as an agent, employee, or under the control of a foreign principal and 2) advocates in some way in the interests of the foreign principal. Alternatively, one who holds himself out to be a foreign agent need not actually engage in advocacy to require registration. In both categories, an express contractual relationship between the individual and the foreign principal is not required to trigger the FARA. A foreign principal can include the government of another country, a “person outside the United States,” or an organization established under the laws of a foreign country. Notably, the FARA does not prohibit the advancement of foreign interests. In this way, the government argues free speech is not infringed though a chilling effect may result. Rather, the law requires that one disclose the agency behind the advocacy. To fulfill the advocacy requirement, one need only engage in political activity, act as a public relations agent, solicit donations, or represent the interests of the foreign principal to the U.S. government.

Does the FARA Violate the First Amendment?

While the Act does not explicitly limit speech, others have argued that the FARA chills First Amendment liberties by attaching negative labelling. In Meese v. Keene, the Supreme Court found this argument unconvincing for three reasons: First, Justice John Paul Stevens opined that the labels set up by congress in the FARA are meant to enhance truthful discourse by ensuring an informed public. Second, he contended that the labels in the Act have been law for so long that negative misinterpretation by the public should be a rare occurrence. Third, Stevens noted that the Court owes a level of respect to Congress in deciding to use terms like “political propaganda” as defined in the FARA. Consequently, the majority in Meese declined to find a chilling effect on free speech because the Act does not directly intervene in protected expression. Justice Harry Blackmun’s dissent, however, argued that the FARA’s labels are far from neutral. He elaborated, “The Court’s error on neutrality leads it to ignore the practical effects of the classification, which create an indirect burden on expression.” While the existing precedent holds that the FARA does not infringe on free speech, an enterprising advocate could petition the Supreme Court to overturn the holding in Meese.

Is Mere Contact with a Foreign Principal Enough?

Without more facts as to the relationship Carlson had with the Iranian nationals in question, one can only tentatively conclude he had some kind of communication with them. As defined in the Act, these individuals meet the definition of a foreign principal because they are persons outside the United States. The agency requirement of the FARA, however, is a much higher standard than mere contact. While an express contract is not required, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals noted in United States v. German-American Vocational League, Inc. that there must be mutual consent between the two parties as explained in the Restatement (1st) of Agency § 1. In other words, the agent must agree to act on behalf of and be subject to control by the foreign principal, and the foreign principal must agree that the agent so act. The FARA’s agency requirement, however, need not meet the Restatement (2d) of Agency’s more strict focus on control.

In Carlson’s case, the limited known facts do not lend themselves to his categorization as a foreign agent by contact alone. Surely the DoJ does not expect a journalist of national and international affairs to avoid speaking to citizens of another country for fear of triggering a FARA designation. Unless Carlson’s intercepted text messages contain some manifestation of consent to enter into an agency arrangement, the DoJ will have an extraordinarily uphill battle proving Carlson’s categorization under the Act. Even if these Iranian contacts were officials inside the Iranian government or members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the foreign principal’s proximity to state power does not lower the requirement that agency be established by mutual consent.

What If Iranian Nationals Requested that Carlson Lobby for Peace?

Some commentators like Loomer allege that Carlson, at the request of these Iranian nationals, lobbied the President to avoid war with Iran. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Irish Northern Aid Committee explained that FARA triggering requests must be analyzed according to the following factors: 1) If the request specifically named the would-be agent, 2) and the specificity of the action requested. Without more facts, Carlson’s agency under these allegations is unknown. Assuming the allegation’s truth, the DoJ may have a better case than using only Carlson’s contact with Iranian nationals. If one such Iranian individual, a foreign principal, requested that Carlson utilize his connections to gain audience with the President and lobby against the war, his actions may have been enough to establish agency under the Irish Northern Aid Committee standard. If the requester only asked Carlson to think about options to avoid war, agency may fail for lack of specificity. Without knowing the exact facts of the situation, it is difficult to predict where his actions fall on this spectrum.

Perhaps Carlson could argue that peace is in the interest of all nations, not just Iran. Nevertheless, the Act does not require that the interest in question be exclusive to the foreign principal. The statute explains that if one “represents the interests of such foreign principal before any agency or official of the Government of the United States,” he fulfills the advocacy requirement. If it can be shown that Carlson acted on a specific request to lobby the President by his Iranian contact, the DoJ may successfully argue that he represented the interests of Iran to the government. This is irrespective if that interest is shared by other countries or even the United States itself.

Does Taking Money from a Foreign Principal Make One a Foreign Agent?

Independent of the allegations of having contact with Iranian nationals, Loomer contends Carlson took money from various Middle Eastern governments.  The simple act of receiving funds from a foreign government, however, is not enough to establish agency. In the 1966 amended text of the statute, the drafters noted, “mere receipt of a bona fide subsidy not subjecting the recipient to the direction or control of the donor does not require the recipient of the subsidy to register as an agent of the donor.” Illustratively, the court in Attorney General of the United States v. Irish People, Inc. agreed that even significant and repeated donations by a foreign principal do not decisively create agency unless there is an aspect of control. Loomer claims Carlson received funds to compensate him for his team’s travels. Unless this payment came with conditions that he report a certain way or shift his coverage on behalf of the interests of the subsidizing state, agency is not established.

The Defense of Selective Prosecution

Given the present American mediascape and scarce examples of enforcement of the FARA, Carlson could contend that the DoJ is selectively cracking down on those critical of the Iran War. The defense originates in the equal protection aspect of the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause. In Carlson’s case, he must show that the decision to prosecute arose out of “the desire to penalize the exercise of constitutional rights.” The constitutional right in this case would be his protected free speech. He must also show that the DoJ declined to prosecute similarly situated individuals on the other side of the issue.

But courts are likely to be hesitant to accept a selective prosecution defense because Carlson’s First Amendment rights may not actually be infringed. As the Irish People court elucidated, enforcement of the FARA does not criminalize the speech in question. The D.C. Court of Appeals explained that the government’s motive in that case was only “insuring that the people of the United States may appraise their statements in light of their source.” This is likely to be the same rebuttal the DoJ will take with regards to Carlson if he raises the defense of selective prosecution. They will argue that they do not seek to quash his protected speech, but only to apprise the American people  of his concealed motivations.

Conclusion

If the DoJ finds that Carlson should have registered under the FARA, the most likely vector would be the Irish Northern Aid Commission request standard. They will attempt to establish that the pundit’s lobbying against the war was in response to a foreign principal’s request. The consequences of registration for an individual who makes his living on communication could be devastating. The DoJ could seek an injunction against any further broadcasting or video content until Carlson registers. If he complies with their demands, his content would likely need to carry disclaimers detailing his foreign alignment. The result would likely be a loss of credibility and reputation with his audience, a disastrous blow for an independent media figure. Moreover, using the FARA to chill constitutionally protected speech amid a new war would set a dangerous precedent for American political discourse. While the true facts of Carlson’s case are unknown, one may surmise that the government’s version of events paints a highly unfavorable view of his communications with foreign nationals. As the Iran conflagration spreads out of control, the appetite for harassing dissenters at home like Carlson is likely to grow in direct proportion.

Footnotes/Citations

  1. Loomer, Laura (@LauraLoomer). “Tucker Carlson needs to be investigated for possible FARA violations. Take a look at this video.” X (formerly Twitter), Feb. 1, 2026, https://x.com/LauraLoomer/status/2018054665099719041
  2. Loomer, Laura (@LauraLoomer). “If Tucker Qatarlson gets charged for violating FARA and or leaking information to Russia, …” X (formerly Twitter), March 14, 2026, 1:23 p.m., https://x.com/LauraLoomer/status/2032976193461633048
  3. U.S. Congress, Special Committee on Un-American Activities, Investigation of Nazi and Other Propaganda, 74th Cong., 1st sess., February 15, H.Rept. 153 (Washington: GPO, 1935), p. 2.
  4. 22 U.S.C. § 611(c)(2).
  5. Id.
  6. Id. § 611(b).
  7. 22 U.S.C. § 611(c)(1).
  8. Meese v. Keene, 481 U.S. 465, 479 (1987).
  9. Id. at 480.
  10. Id. at 483.
  11. Id. at 484.
  12. Id. at 486.
  13. Id. at 490.
  14. United States v. German‑Am. Vocational League, Inc., 153 F.2d 860, 864 (3d Cir. 1946).
  15. Attorney Gen. of the U.S. v. Irish N. Aid Comm., 668 F.2d 159, 161 (2d Cir. 1982).
  16. Id.
  17. 22 U.S.C. § 611(c)(1).
  18. H.R. Rep. No. 1470, 89th Cong. 2d Sess. 5-6 (1966)
  19. Attorney Gen. of the U.S. v. Irish People, Inc. 796 F.2d 520, 524 (D.C. Cir. 1986).
  20. United States v. Swanson, 509 F.2d 1205, 1208 (8th Cir. 1975); United States v. Berrios, 501 F.2d 1207 (2d Cir. 1974).
  21. Irish People, Inc. 796 F.2d 520, 525.
  22. Id. at 526.

Will Hate Speech Laws Claim a New Victim in Brazil?

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In early February 2026, as newly released documents detailed Jeffrey Epstein’s network of influence, Brazilian sociologist Jessé Souza posted an Instagram video making explosive claims. Epstein, he said, was “the most perfect product of Jewish Zionism” and “was not only funded by the Jewish lobby.” The pedophilia network “only existed to later serve as blackmail to Israel regarding billionaire politicians, especially Americans, to have support for Israel’s murderous practices.” He claimed the “Jewish Holocaust was pimped out by Zionism, with the help of Hollywood and all the world media, dominated by the Jewish lobby.”

Within hours, the video was deleted. Within days, a criminal complaint had been filed under Brazil’s strict hate speech laws. Within weeks, Souza faced potential imprisonment.

The Confederação Israelita do Brasil, Brazil’s umbrella Jewish organization, issued a statement calling it “regrettable that Prof. Souza uses his academic standing as a platform to spread hatred against Jews.”

Souza’s apology satisfied no one. According to CNN Brasil, he maintained that “Epstein is a product of Zionism as a racist and murderous ideology.” He acknowledged erring by failing to distinguish between the “Zionist lobby” and the “Jewish lobby,” and said he had “several non-Zionist Jewish friends.” In his statement to CNN Brasil, he claimed he “did not accuse individuals or collectivities, but a ‘structure of power.'” He also criticized “two years of absolute silence in the face of the genocide of the Palestinian people.”

On February 11, 2026, state deputy Guto Zacarias and Renato Battista filed a criminal complaint with the Federal Prosecutor’s Office, arguing Souza’s remarks violated Article 20 of Law 7,716 of 1989, which criminalizes inciting discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin. The penalty is one to three years imprisonment plus a fine.

Hate speech laws are often associated with Europe, but such laws have made their ways to the tropics over the past century. Brazil’s hate speech framework emerged from a 1950 incident when African American dancer Katherine Dunham was refused rooms at São Paulo’s Hotel Esplanada because she was Black. The incident gained wide media attention. Congressman Afonso Arinos de Melo Franco proposed Law 1,390 of 1951, making racial discrimination in public places, education, and employment a contravenção penal (misdemeanor) punishable by fines and short jail terms.

The law was largely symbolic. Brazil’s Black movement denounced it for decades as ineffective. No one was ever convicted. In 1979, the Movimento Negro Unificado held a symbolic burial of the Act to protest its futility. The critical transformation came during Brazil’s re-democratization. The National Constituent Assembly of 1987 to 1988 brought together social movements suppressed during military dictatorship. The Brazilian Black movement drove anti racism provisions into the new Constitution.

Carlos Alberto Caó, a Black lawyer, journalist, and federal deputy imprisoned under military dictatorship, was the single most important legislator. A Democratic Labour Party member and student movement veteran, Caó successfully inserted Article 5, Section XLII into the 1988 Constitution, declaring racism a non bailable crime with no statute of limitations, an extraordinarily severe classification in Brazilian law.

Following ratification, Caó proposed Law 7,716 of January 5, 1989, the Lei Caó, criminalizing preventing or hindering access to employment, commercial establishments, education, restaurants, transportation, housing, or armed forces based on race, color, ethnicity, religion, or national origin. Penalties ranged from one to five years imprisonment.

The framework expanded multiple times. In 1997, Senator Paulo Paim, a Black steelworker turned politician, authored Law 9,459, broadening scope to explicitly cover religion and national origin alongside race, introducing the crime of racial disparagement. The law also criminalized manufacturing, selling, or displaying Nazi symbols including swastikas for purposes of promoting Nazism, with penalties of two to five years imprisonment.

The connection to Holocaust revisionism crystallized through Siegfried Ellwanger, a Brazilian of German descent who founded Editora Revisão and published Holocaust revisionist books from Porto Alegre. His most notorious work was “Holocausto: Judeu ou Alemão?” published in 1987.

The Movimento Popular Antirracista, a coalition uniting Jewish, Black, and human rights movements, filed criminal denunciations. The CONIB, along with the Federação Israelita do Estado de São Paulo and Federação Israelita do Rio Grande do Sul, filed complaints and supported prosecution under the Caó Law.

The Supreme Court upheld Ellwanger’s conviction in September 2003 by an 8 to 3 vote, ruling that antisemitism constitutes racism under Brazilian law. The Court declared that “the division of human beings into races results from a process of merely political social content” and that Ellwanger’s Holocaust revisionism constituted the crime of practicing racism. This became one of the most important free speech and hate crime rulings in Brazilian legal history. The Ellwanger precedent established that Jewish identity is a racial category for criminal law purposes. This is the legal foundation on which the complaint against Souza rests.

The Black-Jewish alliance that prosecuted Ellwanger emerged in late 1992, when both communities formed an unprecedented coalition against racial hatred, described as the first time in Brazilian history that Blacks and Jews united politically around a common struggle. In November 2022, Jewish representatives participated in São Paulo’s March of Black Consciousness under the banner “Jews Against Racism,” declaring that “Blacks and Jews are the many stories rich in discrimination processes and our tradition impels us to resist the fight against racism.”

The legacy of this alliance appears in unexpected forms. Guto Zacarias, who filed the complaint, is a 27-year-old state legislator from São Paulo, the youngest ever elected in 2022. His great grandfather was José Benedito Correia Leite, a historic Black activist. Despite his Black heritage, Zacarias has established a pattern of acting as legal advocate for Jewish organizations, particularly CONIB. In January 2024, when former Workers’ Party president José Genoíno suggested boycotting “certain Jewish companies,” Zacarias promptly filed a criminal complaint for racism.

Zacarias did not act alone. He was joined by Renato Battista, the national coordinator of the Movimento Brasil Livre and one of MBL’s most prominent political operatives. Like Zacarias, Battista has cultivated a visible pro-Israel persona. On October 7, 2025, the second anniversary of the Hamas attack, Battista posted a photo of himself at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. “Just as this Wall has withstood centuries of wars and destruction, Israel and its people remain standing, reminding the world that faith is stronger than terror,” he wrote. An earlier post from January 2025 showed him at the same site “giving thanks for having arrived this far.”

This pro-Israel activism by Brazilian right-wing figures mirrors the institutional posture of CONIB itself. CONIB was founded May 30, 1948, weeks after Israel’s independence. It gathers 14 state Jewish federations and explicitly identifies as pro-Israel and Zionist. Following October 7, 2023, CONIB documented a 961% increase in antisemitic reports.

CONIB has pushed for adoption of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, which Rio de Janeiro adopted in November 2023. The definition controversially includes examples relating to Israel criticism, such as claiming Israel’s existence is “a racist endeavor” or comparing Israeli policy to Nazism. When President Lula compared Gaza to the Holocaust in February 2024, CONIB condemned it as “a perverse distortion of reality,” triggering a major diplomatic crisis.

Far from being confined to the Euro-American space, the long arm of Judah now imperils tropical realms like Brazil. It’s part of organized Jewry’s global campaign to bend every Gentile—be they leftist radicals, right-wing stalwarts, Whites, Blacks, or other racial pairings—to its inexorable will. Souza’s fate illuminates the pivot: Jewish machinations spare no ally on the Left who dares challenge the Sanhedrin’s power. Only when Gentiles shatter the polarization vortex engineered by Jewish machinations can the authentic struggle—Jew vs. Gentile—unfold, correcting the multitude of errors committed during the 20th century and restoring ethnic hierarchies to their rightful order.

Victory for the First Amendment in the Third Circuit

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This article first appeared on the website of the Free Expression Foundation.

… a female professor – and of course, it would be a female professor because, as Orwell noted, “It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy”– handed NJIT’s Provost an essay from Jorjani’s personal (non-university) website entitled, “Against Perennial Philosophy.” His sin here was mentioning a genetic link between race and intelligence, which really set the faculty frothing. Entire departments took to the school newspaper to denounce Jorjani – though none dared debate him.

On September 8, 2025 the Third Circuit Court of Appeals did something remarkable: it protected a proponent of race realist speech against depredation by a state university. The case is Jorjani v. New Jersey Inst. Tech, 151 F.4th 135 (3rd Cir. 2025) and it bears watching.

Jason Jorjani was a lecturer at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (or NJIT) in Newark, New Jersey. (A lecturer is a kind of junior professor, a role many universities have embraced as a means of exploiting the large number of Ph.Ds on the market). He had taught for several years at NJIT in Newark, earning very strong reviews from his students, especially the minorities. His publishing record, too, was very strong. But then Jorjani found himself the subject of a doxxing attack published in the New York Times on September 19, 2017 (viz. “Undercover with the Alt Right” by Jesse Singal). It transpired that in the summer of 2017, while school was not in session, Jorjani was secretly recorded without his consent during an off-campus conversation in a pub in New York City. His interlocutor in that conversation, which had gone on for hours and covered various controversial topics, turned out to be an undercover left-wing operative.

None of Jorjani’s remarks were directed to anyone at NJIT, nor did they mention anyone at NJIT.

The premise that the left-wing operative used to secure Jorjani’s confidence was that the operative was a right wing graduate student who wanted to discuss how the left persecutes the right in the modern academy. Immune to all irony, one of the first things the left wing organization that had set the sting did upon publication was to post a Facebook petition demanding that Jorjani be fired for his comments in the New York City pub.

The left-wing operatives would soon have their way.

Instead of defending Jorjani’s right to speak, the day after the NYT Op-Ed was published the President of NJIT, along with the Dean, responded with the release of a Mass Email that went to all faculty and staff at NJIT (approximately 200 people) before Jorjani had even been heard from. The Mass Email specifically condemned Jorjani for his speech as revealed in the NYT Op-Ed and then announced that he was being treated to an investigation because of his speech. Five days later, those sanctions were given added teeth when the NJIT administration suspended Jorjani from teaching while they conducted an “investigation” prompted by his speech.

NJIT’s administration inspired something like a feeding frenzy in the rest of the faculty. With the NJIT administration having chummed the waters by indicating that Jorjani could and would be targeted because of his extra-mural speech, the sharks began to circle. The administrative attack on Jorjani induced people within NJIT to scrutinize other extra-mural speech by Jorjani and bring such speech to the attention of the NJIT administration. Thus, shortly after the Mass Email, a female professor – and of course, it would be a female professor because, as Orwell noted, “It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy”– handed NJIT’s Provost an essay from Jorjani’s personal (non-university) website entitled, “Against Perennial Philosophy.” His sin here was mentioning a genetic link between race and intelligence, which really set the faculty frothing. Entire departments took to the school newspaper to denounce Jorjani – though none dared debate him.

Jorjani’s “Against Perennial Philosophy” essay was again an instance of extra-mural speech on various topics of public concern, including geo-political matters in modern Iran, brutal periods in Persian history (including an apparent historical genocide perpetrated by invading Turkic peoples against the prior Aryan peoples of Persia), and the prospect of eugenics. It was composed from remarks Jorjani had originally delivered to a Persian think tank he had been involved with. Again, Jorjani had never directed “Against Perennial Philosophy” to anyone at NJIT, nor did the essay even mention anyone at NJIT.

Suffice to say that no one at NJIT was interested in past genocides, let alone of white people. Rather, what excited their attention was the very small part of the essay which dealt with racial differences in intelligence.

Needless to say, Jorjani’s suspension was never reinstated; instead, the school simply refused to renew his appointment. Incredibly, the state university contended that Jorjani’s extramural speech in both the NYC pub and in his essay, which they conceded met the test under the law for “speech on a matter of public concern,” was simply too “disruptive” in itself to permit his continued employment. (Again and again NJIT came back to this notion of “disruption,” ultimately derived from the case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969)).  If one wants to know what kind of men find their way in the modern academy and hold rein there, we offer the following exchange from the deposition with Jorjani’s Dean:

Q: Students and faculty were so distracted by a conversation that had been secretly recorded off campus months before, they could not effectively concentrate on their studies and on their teaching at NJIT; is that right?

A: Yes.

Nor was this a momentary lapse of reason. Here are some additional outtakes from the Dean’s performance at his deposition:

Q: In the course of your nearly three decades in the academy, have you had the opportunity to consider the concept of academic freedom?

A: It — it — it’s difficult to say. I — I haven’t explicitly considered it.

*

Q: Your job [is] concerned in some respect with academic freedom; correct?

A: I’m not aware that, you know, specifically that’s in my job description.

*

Q: So my question to you, Dean ___, is: Are there some instances when there should be a pall of orthodoxy thrown over the classroom?… MR. KELLY: Let the record reflect that Dean _____ was taking some time to answer this question. Please take as much time as you need, sir.

THE WITNESS: Sure. I’ll say possibly, yes.

*

Q: So, Dean____, the question is: As part of the limited concept of academic freedom that you hold, are you aware of the need for the academy to protect controversial speech?

A: No.

*

Q: Did you have any concern in September of 2017, with protecting unpopular speech?

A: Did I have a concern about protecting unpopular speech?

Q: Yes, sir.

A: No.

Q: Have you had time to reflect upon that lack of concern since then?

A: I — I — I — no. I haven’t really thought about it.

And yet the trial court, standing all modern First Amendment jurisprudence on its head, backed the Dean and NJIT. It is as though the judge interpreted the bedrock principle to be that the Government certainly may prohibit the expression of an idea – simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.

But a unanimous panel of the Third Circuit disagreed, strongly: “the disruption NJIT described does not outweigh even minimal interest in Jorjani’s speech.” Jorjani v. New Jersey Inst. Tech, 151 F.4th 135, 144 (3rd Cir. 2025). It not only characterized the alleged “disruption” as “minimal” but noted that it differed “little from the ordinary operation of a public university.” Id. at 142. Nowhere did the Third Circuit indicate that it was confronting a “close question.”

The case of Jorjani v. New Jersey Inst. Tech, 151 F.4th 135 (3rd Cir. 2025) is now etched in law as a firm reprimand against state sponsored groupthink at public university. Let us hope for a few more free speech victories.

– Frederick C. Kelly, Goshen, New York. The author records his gratitude for professional help from the FEF in reviewing his brief in Jorjani v. New Jersey Inst. Tech, 151 F.4th 135 (3rd Cir. 2025).