Right-wing commentator Benny Johnson branded a group of brutalized ICE protesters as “left-wing terrorists.” Now, they’re suing him for defamation.
On October 3, 2025, Johnson accompanied top Homeland Security officials to an ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois, where a crowd had gathered in a designated “free speech” zone. Johnson filmed as ICE agents broke up the peaceful protest, shoving and striking attendees until they fell to the ground.
He then posted the videos to his various social media channels on X, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Rumble. The content featured clips of the protesters being lined up against a concrete wall, while Johnson narrated the scene, framing the civilians as “left-wing terrorists” who were “arrested for attacking police officers and ICE officers.”
But that was far from the truth and, almost a year later, two of those protesters—Harvard University data scientist Kyle Frankovich and contracted court reporter Maureen Foody—are ready to recoup damages from the reported inaccuracy.
On Friday, Frankovich and Foody filed a joint lawsuit against Johnson, claiming that Johnson knew his portrayals were false, but that he “did not care.”
The duo “sang songs, participated in prayers, held signs, and recorded official activity,” according to the complaint. Neither were charged with a crime, though they were detained for roughly eight hours and eventually released a half-mile from the jail.
Meanwhile, Johnson’s content from that day has collectively accumulated millions of views and interactions, granting the former BuzzFeed writer another pathway to rake in cash on a false narrative. (Johnson was fired from the digital outlet in 2014 for plagiarizing multiple blog posts.) One post, in which Johnson claimed he saw “dozens of Democrat domestic terrorists arrested today for VIOLENT ASSAULT on federal law enforcement” and further purported that “every activist” attending “attacked ICE agents in broad daylight” was viewed 1.7 million times.
Frankovich told MS NOW that he was “shaken” when he saw Johnson’s posts and the comments made by his followers that likened him to an antifa leader and attempted to dox his identity. Some comments included calls to torture, shoot, and kill the arrested protesters, according to the network.
The data scientist also scorned a DHS post that turned an image of his tattooed arms and zip-tied hands into a recruitment poster, framing Frankovich as a criminal.
“You shouldn’t get to lie about me,” Frankovich told MS NOW.
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