Power Grab/Fire anyone who can stop him
The Justice Department indicts two people over a 2022 “Cop City” protest and ties the case to NSPM-7
The charges come four years after the protest, and after Georgia’s state racketeering case against 61 defendants collapsed.
What happened
On June 9, 2026, a federal grand jury in Atlanta indicted Katie Marie Kloth, 39, and Tyler John Norman, 42, over a May 12, 2022 protest at the Cobb County offices of Brasfield & Gorrie. The firm is general contractor for the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. They are accused of launching explosives and setting fires, and are charged with arson of property in interstate commerce and intimidating employees during a civil disorder.
The Justice Department’s June 11 press release said the case “is part of the nationwide National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 initiative,” led by Joint Task Force Vanguard. The acting attorney general certified the intimidation prosecution on June 8. Kloth lives in Colorado Springs and Norman in Blue Mountain, Wisconsin.
Both had been among 61 defendants in Georgia’s state RICO case, which collapsed after a judge found the attorney general lacked authority. A Fulton County judge dismissed all of the RICO charges in September 2025. Georgia had also charged more than 40 people with domestic terrorism in 2022 and 2023.
Who benefited
The Justice Department and FBI gained a concrete case to show NSPM-7 producing prosecutions. The case sits in a protest movement the administration has long cast as left-wing terrorism, and it gives Stephen Miller and other officials an example for framing anti-police protest as organized violence.
Who wanted something
NSPM-7 committed the administration to prosecute “all Federal crimes, to the maximum extent permissible” arising from its political-violence investigations. Bondi’s December 2025 memo directed prosecutors to pursue such cases. A federal case over a four-year-old protest fits that mandate.
Who lost out
Kloth and Norman face federal charges four years after the protest, and after the state prosecution that named them collapsed. Protesters generally see that a counterterrorism label can attach to a demonstration after the fact, once the political climate changes.
Why it matters
A 2022 protest is now being prosecuted under a counterterrorism memo signed in September 2025. The state’s case ended on a ruling about the attorney general’s authority, not about the protest. The federal case revives prosecution of training-center protesters under a framework that did not exist when they gathered.
Sources U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Georgia (primary)Atlanta Community Press CollectiveAtlanta News FirstThe White House (primary)The Guardian