Trump's ICE is now investigating US citizens who speak out against them

At a White House event meant to showcase another first, Donald Trump gave Americans a clearer view of something far more dangerous: a government that protects the powerful while intimidating ordinary citizens for speaking out. He casually bragged that crypto figures were lucky he was president when federal investigations disappeared, even as ICE's internal watchdog was being turned outward against Americans who criticized the agency. The result is a chilling picture of selective accountability, federal surveillance, and a direct threat to the First Amendment itself.

Based on the events of 7-6-2026

The Breakdown:

* Trump opened an Oval Office event fixated on a gold bell and joking that he would not give it back.

* During the event, he was asked about cryptocurrency and responded by taking credit for investigations being dropped.

* Trump said that when he sees a crypto figure whose investigation was dropped, he tells them, "You're lucky I'm president."

* The script connects that admission to an industry that has personally enriched him by more than a billion dollars.

* The same day, Wired reported that ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility has opened more than 100 cases involving Americans accused of doxing or threatening ICE employees.

* ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility was created to investigate misconduct, corruption, and abuse by ICE officers.

* That internal watchdog is now being aimed outward at civilians for speech critical of ICE.

* The script contrasts those speech investigations with the lack of accountability for federal officers involved in DHS shootings.

* FIRE filed a federal lawsuit in Washington, D.C., on behalf of David Streever of Rochester, New York.

* Streever emailed then-acting ICE Director Todd Lyons after federal agents shot and killed two American citizens in Minneapolis.

* His email was angry and harsh, but the script frames it as protected First Amendment speech.

* Five months later, Homeland Security Investigations agents appeared at Streever's home while he was in Finland with his daughter.

* The agents handed his wife an official ICE and DHS warning notice saying he may be in violation of federal law.

* After Streever returned to the United States, another HSI agent tracked him to an airport hotel at JFK.

* FIRE attorney Adam Steinbaugh said the delayed response showed Streever presented no real threat and that the pursuit was designed to intimidate lawful speech.

* Paigelynne Gonyea in Syracuse received a similar warning notice over an Instagram post while she was working at a polling place.

* Civil liberties groups say these are the first known instances of DHS using formal warning notices against Americans over speech.

* The script warns that authoritarian governments begin by making examples of a few people and watching whether fear spreads.

* Historical parallels include the Stasi, the Soviet security apparatus, and Pinochet's Chile, where institutions meant to protect the public were redirected against dissent.

* The closing argument calls for peaceful speech, accountability, investigations, and collective refusal to be intimidated into silence.

This is not only a story about ICE, cryptocurrency, or one federal lawsuit. It is a warning about what happens when government power stops policing itself and starts policing the people. The First Amendment cannot survive only as words on paper. It survives when ordinary Americans keep using it, especially when those in power want silence. David Streever refused to back down, and because he did, millions of people now know what DHS and ICE were doing. That is how courage spreads, and that is why speaking peacefully, clearly, and together still matters.

This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

I'm Heather Tlaney Reese, and you're listening to Hope for America, where every day I bring you the truth about our politics, our country, and the forces trying to destroy them. Together, we cut through the noise, expose the lies, and stay focused on what really matters, fighting for the survival of our country. At 9.27 yesterday morning, the president walked into the Oval Office excited to once again be the first to do something. He was almost giddy as he made small talk while the event got underway. His attention captured by the large gold bell sitting on his desk. I'm going to ring that bell. And does that bell stay in the White House? Because I'm not giving it back. We're going to put that in the middle of the new ballroom. I'm not going to give that bell back. It looks to me like it's going to stay here. Then he stepped into the position in front of the desk, repeatedly pushing into the children who had been strategically placed as he struggled to get himself fully into the camera's view. It was another reminder of how completely unaware he seems of the people around him. Now the most concerning moment came when he was asked about cryptocurrency. Instead of denying wrongdoing or defending his administration's actions, the president of the United States casually took credit for federal investigations being dropped, suggesting those who benefited had him to think. Every time I see a crypto guy where they dropped an investigation, Trump said, I tell them, you're lucky I'm president. And as disturbing as that admission was, it's who this administration is prosecuting and who it isn't that shows us the dark direction our country is headed. Because on the same day the president boasted about making investigations disappear for the industry that has personally earned him over a billion dollars, we learned more about how one of his own agencies, ICE, was using its investigative power to track down Americans, going after their fellow citizens who criticize it through intimidation, surveillance, and formal warning notices hand-delivered to their front doors by federal agents, all to discourage dissent. Yesterday, Wired published an investigation revealing that ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility, known as OPR, has opened more than 100 cases against Americans accused of what ICE officials call incidents of doxing and threats against ICE employees. That might sound reasonable until you understand what OPR actually is. It is ICE's internal affairs unit. It was created to investigate misconduct, corruption, and abuse of authority by ICE's own officers. It exists to hold the agency accountable from the inside. It is the office that is supposed to investigate agents who use excessive force, violate civil rights, and break the rules they are sworn to uphold. That is its own mandate and purpose. And it is now being aimed outward at American citizens for the act of speaking. That is more than a hundred investigations, not into the agents who shot and killed Alex Predi, the ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA, not into the agents who killed Renee Good or any of the other dozens of DHS shootings since last July that were prematurely declared justified before investigations were even completed. Not a single federal officer has been held accountable. The office built to police ICE is now being used by ICE to police us. And we know exactly how they are doing it. Yesterday, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expressions filed a federal lawsuit in Washington, D.C. on behalf of a man named David Strever. He is a 45-year-old who lives in Rochester, New York. His wife, the Reverend Hillary Strever, is an episcopal priest. On January 26th, after watching federal agents shoot and kill two American citizens in Minneapolis and then watching this administration call those citizens terrorists, David Strever did what Americans have done since the founding of this country. He wrote a letter to the person in charge. He sent a three-paragraph email to then acting ICE Director Todd Lyons. The subject line read, What's next? He called Lyons a monstrous human being. He compared him to a Nazi. He wrote that Lyons would be tormented by his own conscience. He sent it to the government email address. It was raw, it was angry, and it was protected speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Five months passed and nothing happened. And then while David Strever was on a vacation in Finland with his seven-year-old daughter visiting a children's theme park called Moomin World, his doorbell camera back home in Rochester picked up something unusual. It was two federal agents in blue jackets, and they were standing on his front porch, stepping past children's toys to ring the bell. They were from Homeland Security Investigations, HSI, the unit built to investigate transnational organized crime, drug trafficking, human trafficking, cybercrime, and terrorism. That's the unit with access to cell phone location data, credit card transactions, surveillance cameras, and administrative subpoenas to every major tech company in the country. That is the unit they sent to David Strever's house for an email. His wife arrived home still wearing her clergy collar. One of the agents handed her a document. It was printed on official federal stationery from ICE and DHS. Across the top and in underlined capital letters, it read warning notice. And then below that, still in caps, you may be in violation of federal law. It instructed Strever to promptly remove andor discontinue his behavior and warned that the notice would be taken into consideration if he continued to be involved in criminal activity. His wife told the agents her husband was out of the country with their daughter and would be home Friday, but they did not wait. Just hours after Strever and his daughter landed at JFK International Airport, a third HSI agent tracked him to the airport hotel where they were staying for the night. The agent left a business card at the front desk. His wife had not told the agents which hotel he would be at. They found him anyway. Like many Americans, I was deeply upset after the shooting in Minneapolis and I felt compelled to do something, Strever said in a statement. Writing an email to the head of ICE seemed like the least I could do to express my sense of outrage. I never dreamed it would lead to a knock on my door by federal officers or descending on my hotel in the dark of night. Fire senior attorney Adam Steinbaugh put it plainly: if someone is really threatening a government official, you don't wait five months to act on it. The fact that authorities didn't respond immediately shows that David presented no threat. This pursuit is designed to intimidate lawful speech, pure and simple. And David Strever was not the only one. On the same day, agents showed up at his home, June 23rd, the same two HSI agents visited Pagelyn Gonya in Syracuse. She, we've talked about this one before. She was working at the poll place. It was primary election day in New York. They left her a voicemail saying that they had just visited her former apartment and were calling about a post that we believe you made on Instagram. They presented her with the same kind of warning notice. She refused to sign it. These are the first two cases where Americans have come forward to report receiving formal written warnings from federal agents over their speech. And civil liberty groups say they are also the first known instances of DHS using these notices at all. And now we know that there are more than a hundred investigations like this. This is how it begins. Not with mass arrests or with news stations going dark overnight, nor with millions of Americans suddenly losing the right to speak. Authoritarian governments almost never begin there. They begin by making examples out of a few people. They test the public's tolerance. They watch to see whether fear spreads faster than outrage. They want the next person sitting at their keyboard to hesitate before pressing post. They want us to stop before writing an email to a government official and ask ourselves, is this worth someone showing up at my front door? And who knows what next? If they can make enough of us ask that question, they don't have to outlaw free speech. They can convince us to surrender it ourselves. And that is why the architecture of what is happening here is so deeply troubling. Authoritarian governments focus on silencing dissent and consolidating power. We know this. Over the last century, we have seen other regimes follow some version of the same playbook. The Stasi in East Germany did not begin as a tool of mass surveillance. It evolved into one. At least publicly, the Soviet Union's security apparatus was gradually transformed from policing the state into policing the people. Under Augusto, Pinochet and Chile, the institutions that were supposed to protect the public were redirected towards identifying, intimidating, and eliminating political opposition. The pattern is always the same. The office that is supposed to hold power accountable is slowly repurposing it to protect those in power from the people they govern. And once that transformation is complete, there is no one left to investigate the investigators, leaving everyone vulnerable to the whims of the man in charge. By that I mean Donald Trump and his enablers. We are watching that transformation happen again right here in the United States of America. The office that was created to investigate misconduct inside ICE is now investigating Americans who criticize ICE. And these aren't people who are being violent. These are people who are writing letters or posting on social media, calling for no harm. They want justice, not violence. The First Amendment was never meant to protect speech everyone agrees with. It exists to protect the speech those in power would rather silence. The founders understood something timeless about human nature. Before a government can undermine elections, intimidate political opponents, or silence a free press, it must first convince ordinary people that speaking honestly is dangerous for them and their families. That is why freedom of speech was not buried somewhere deep in the Bill of Rights. It was placed first. They understood that if citizens lose the ability to criticize their government without fear of retaliation, every other liberty eventually becomes negotiable. That is why last night's story is about more than cryptocurrency or ice. It is about whether Americans will continue to feel free to tell the truth tomorrow. Because if enough people become afraid to write posts like I do or make videos like this every night, or send an email or call a reporter or attend a peaceful protest or criticize those in power, they won't need to repeal the First Amendment. It will still exist on paper. It just won't exist in practice. And once a government discovers it can intimidate its own citizens into silence, history shows it rarely stops there. It pushes further, it tests another boundary and then another until fear becomes the law, even if the Constitution still says otherwise. And maybe you're wondering, well, what do we do? What do we do in this moment? Well, we speak out, all of us right now, in this moment today. They tracked one man across the state of New York for an email. And now they want the rest of us to see that and think twice before saying anything. But here's what they don't have the resources to do. They can't investigate every American who objects to what ICE is doing. They don't have the bandwidth or the infrastructure. The system of intimidation only works when people are isolated, believe they are alone, and think the cost of speaking is too high, and staying quiet is the safer option. But it's not. It never has been. Silence is how these movements grow. Silence is what they're counting on. We are not calling for violence against ICE officers. We're not calling for threats against anyone. We are taking a stand against what ICE has become. An agency that has killed American citizens, that is holding people in conditions that violate basic human decency. That has turned its own internal watchdog against the public. And that is using the full weight of federal law enforcement to punish people who say so out loud. We are calling for investigations into what happened inside those detention facilities. We are calling for accountability for the officers who used lethal force against American citizens. We are calling for this to stop. And the way we do that is by making it impossible to silence us. Post about it, write about it, call your representatives, put your name on it. Do what David Strever did. Use your voice. Because if millions of Americans speak out at once, they can't show up at all of our doors. They can intimidate one person, they can't intimidate a country. David Strever did not stay silent. He was handed a formal warning suggesting his speech might be a federal crime. And he refused to back down. Yesterday, he is the plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security. The man they tried to silence is now the reason millions of Americans know what they are doing in that office. That is what happens when one person refuses to be afraid. Courage has a way of spreading faster than fear once someone is willing to go first. This is our responsibility now. Not to answer intimidation with violence or hatred, but with more voices, more truth, more people willing to stand up peacefully and say, this is not who we are. Because they can intimidate one person, they can intimidate a hundred, but they cannot intimidate an entire country that refuses to surrender its voice. And every single day, more people are finding the courage to speak. And that is why I still have hope for America and you should too. This post is not just about ICE. This is about Donald Trump's entire administration. He is pointing the finger at anyone who doesn't follow his agenda and calling them communists now. He is turning internal offices into policing agencies against the American people. He's creating untruths about what his own people are doing. Nobody sabotaged the reflecting pool. And yet he's telling us an Olympian sliced into it and caused the damage. We know that's not true. Think of everything that he's doing, every single thing. He took away a joy that we were all feeling with the soccer games by interfering about that red card. And people are upset now because they feel like he is a hoax on any sporting event. The tide is turning. Now is the time to speak out. Use your voice, use it in person, use it to people you talk with in everyday life. Let them know that you are a safe person on the right side of history and use your voice online. And I like I always say, if if you feel uncomfortable doing so, use my words. Share something that I wrote. Use the parts of what I've written as your own. That's fine. Right now we all have to stand up. This is our moment because the tide is turning and we need to take advantage of it. We are within four months of the midterms. This is the time to take a stand. And remember, no matter how dark the days get, I will be here every single day, and together we will always find hope for America. I'll see you tomorrow.