The author, a feminist writer, was contacted by a reporter because a film review she wrote was introduced as evidence in a federal terrorism trial. The trial involves protesters arrested after a demonstration against an ICE facility, where a police officer was shot.
Prosecutors used her essay about horror movies as "evidence of ideologically driven intent" against a defendant accused of concealing materials. The author argues this represents "guilt by literature," where First Amendment-protected speech is weaponized to criminalize dissent and conflate antifa with terrorism.
The main topics covered are the use of the author's writing as legal evidence, the broader prosecution of protesters, and the implications for free speech and the criminalization of political activism.
Sophie Lewis is an author and independent scholar based in Philadelphia.
It was a Saturday in February, and I was checking my email inbox on my phone for no particular reason, during a conference. A Mother Jones reporter had written a note, so I opened it.
It’s not so unusual for me to receive press inquiries — I am a feminist writer who touches on hot-button issues — but this particular email I never could have predicted. It was about an infamous federal case against people arrested in connection to a protest against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Last July 4, a group of people had gathered for a demonstration against ICE’s Prairieland Detention Facility in Alvarado, Texas. It was a noise demo during which a police officer was shot. Some 18 people were arrested and charged for the protest.
The government’s indictment against the Prairieland protesters stood as a chilling development in President Donald Trump’s war on dissent: It was the first time that terrorism-related charges had been brought against people for allegedly being part of an “antifa cell.”
Did I have any thoughts, the Mother Jones reporter wanted to know, on the prosecution using an essay by me in a terrorism trial?
Excuse me?
The essay in question: a film review I wrote in 2019 about the horror movies “Hereditary” and “Midsommar.”
I blinked twice, rubbed my eyes, and then began digging around on the internet to understand.
To my astonishment, prosecutors had introduced my seven-year-old analysis of feminism’s relationship to horror cinema as “evidence of ideologically driven intent” the previous day.
Although I published the piece in “Commune” magazine, the review had been printed in zine format — and that was what authorities seized from the Dallas home of one of the defendants, Daniel Sanchez Estrada, last summer.
“Guilt by Literature”
The appearance of my review in the trial is a brazen attempt at conjuring “guilt by literature” — just one of the tactics prosecutors have used to criminalize speech and use First Amendment-protected speech as a legal weapon against the Trump administration’s political enemies.
Nobody, by the way, is suggesting that Estrada shot or conspired to shoot the officer. He stands accused of two crimes: attempting to conceal documents “by transporting a box containing numerous Antifa materials” and conspiracy to conceal those zines. He faces up to 20 years in prison.
Estrada isn’t himself facing terror charges, but he being tarred with the label by his association with this so-called “antifa cell.” What Estrada’s case most acutely represents is the way the President Donald Trump conflates antifa and terrorism to do things like criminalize the transportation of zines — in other words, simple First Amendment protected activity.
Trump pulled this off by deeming antifa a “major terrorist organization” — a legal designation that doesn’t even exist for domestic groups — ignoring the fact that antifa is an orientation, not a group.
The feds, as Natasha Lennard notes, tend to try to evidence such charges by collecting circumstantial evidence of individual crimes alleged to have taken place “in the context of” legal protest activity — even when there is no direct link between those charged and the alleged crimes.
The charge may or may not stick — often they don’t — but the lawfare from above serves a terrorizing end in itself, she explains, since “the lengthy prosecutions hamper protest movements and chill dissent.”
Why My Review?
I need to ask: Why my review? And the truth is I don’t really have a great answer.
There is a rich irony here: My little horror movie review was introduced to prove a conception of antifa that — like many of the monsters we scream at in horror flicks — isn’t quite real.
The title of my essay — which is to say, of the zine seized from the accused’s house in Dallas — is “The Satanic Death-Cult Is Real.” It refers to the fictional demon-worshipping ceremony in the final scene of “Hereditary” as well as, at the same time, to the all-too-real, madness-inducing logic of the private nuclear household.
From my ego’s standpoint, it’s painful to assume that anyone is refusing to read beyond my titles before reacting. (It’s a tragically common occurrence: I’m the author, after all, of books about the communization of care with titles like “Full Surrogacy Now” and “Abolish the Family.”)
It seems, though, that the FBI didn’t read beyond the cover of what it calls my “booklet.” That was the description of my review-in-zine-form when it appeared in an itemized receipt for seized property, alongside cellphones, computers, weapons, and other bits of technology — for the sole reason that it is willing to throw anything, no matter how absurd, at anti-ICE activists to paint them as vile terrorists.
When the Mother Jones reporter messaged, I replied immediately, from my phone, in a state of agitation. It ought to be surprising, I pointed out, that possession of a printout of some film criticism could be brandished as evidence of a treasonous conspiracy against the United States government, yet — in 2026 — it is not.
“Perhaps,” indeed, I wrote, “there is an element of truth in the state’s preposterous linking of the mere implication of having read antifascist culture writing about the private nuclear family in [director] Ari Aster’s oeuvre with the alleged crime of belonging to a cell of an organization — antifa — that, as we all know, doesn’t even exist.”
Thankfully, however, organized antifascism does exist. I proudly accept the notion that any of my writings have helped in any small way to stoke the desire to practice antifascism, courageously and practically, as those blocking and protesting the brutality of American stormtroopers are doing all over the world.
If nothing else, I’m grateful that the FBI seized my book review and that prosecutors hauled it out in this ridiculous trial, because it gave me the opportunity to express my full solidarity with the Prairieland defendants.
IT’S EVEN WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT.
What we’re seeing right now from Donald Trump is a full-on authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government.
This is not hyperbole.
Court orders are being ignored. MAGA loyalists have been put in charge of the military and federal law enforcement agencies. The Department of Government Efficiency has stripped Congress of its power of the purse. News outlets that challenge Trump have been banished or put under investigation.
Yet far too many are still covering Trump’s assault on democracy like politics as usual, with flattering headlines describing Trump as “unconventional,” “testing the boundaries,” and “aggressively flexing power.”
The Intercept has long covered authoritarian governments, billionaire oligarchs, and backsliding democracies around the world. We understand the challenge we face in Trump and the vital importance of press freedom in defending democracy.
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IT’S BEEN A DEVASTATING year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
That’s where you come in. Will you help us expand our reporting capacity in time to hit the ground running in 2026?
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I’M BEN MUESSIG, The Intercept’s editor-in-chief. It’s been a devastating year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
That’s where you come in. Will you help us expand our reporting capacity in time to hit the ground running in 2026?
We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us?
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