District Attorney Larry Krasner on Wednesday announced the formation of a new coalition of progressive prosecutors committed to charging federal agents who violate state laws.
Krasner joined eight other prosecutors from U.S. cities to create the Project for the Fight Against Federal Overreach, a legal fund that local prosecutors can tap if they pursue charges against federal agents.
The abbreviation for the group, FAFO, is a nod to what has become one of Krasner’s frequent slogans: “F— around and find out.”
The move places Krasner at the center of a growing national clash between Democrats and the Trump administration over federal immigration enforcement and whether local law enforcement can — or should — charge federal agents for actions they take while carrying out official duties.
It is also the latest instance in which Krasner, one of the nation’s most prominent progressive prosecutors, has positioned himself as Philadelphia’s most vocal critic of President Donald Trump. He has made opposing the president core to his political identity for a decade, and he said often as he was running for reelection last year that he sees himself as much as a “democracy advocate” as a prosecutor.
Krasner has used provocative rhetoric to describe the president and his allies, often comparing their agenda to World War II-era fascism. During a news conference Tuesday, he said federal immigration-enforcement agencies are made up of “a small bunch of wannabe Nazis.”
The coalition announced Wednesday includes prosecutors from Minneapolis; Tucson, Ariz.; and several cities in Texas and Virginia. It was formed to amass resources after two shootings of U.S. citizens by federal law enforcement officials in Minnesota this month.
Renee Good, 37, was shot and killed in her car by an ICE officer on Jan. 7 as she appeared to attempt to drive away during a confrontation with agents. The FBI said it would not investigate her killing.
Then, on Saturday, Alex Pretti, 37, was killed after similarly confronting agents on a Minneapolis street. Video of the shooting, which contradicted federal officials’ accounts, appeared to show Border Patrol agents disarming Pretti, who was carrying a legally owned handgun in a holster. They then shot him multiple times. Federal authorities have attempted to block local law enforcement from investigating the shooting.
Krasner said that, despite Vice President JD Vance’s recent statement that ICE officers had “absolute immunity” — an assertion the Philadelphia DA called “complete nonsense” — prosecutors in FAFO are prepared to bring charges including murder, obstructing the administration of justice, tampering with evidence, assault, and perjury against agents who commit similar acts in their cities.
“There is a sliver of immunity that is not going to save people who disarm a suspect and then repeatedly shoot him in the back from facing criminal charges,” Krasner said during a virtual news conference Wednesday. “There is a sliver of immunity that is not going to save people who are shooting young mothers with no criminal record and no weapon in the side or back of the head when it’s very clear the circumstances didn’t require any of that, that it was not reasonable.”
How will FAFO work?
The coalition has created a website, federaloverreach.org, and is soliciting donations.
Prosecutors who spoke during the news conference said those donations would be toward a legal fund that would allow prosecutors to hire outside litigators, experts, and forensic investigators as they pursue high-profile cases against federal agents.
“This will function as a common fund,” said Ramin Fatehi, the top prosecutor in Norfolk, Va., “where those of us who find ourselves in the tragic but necessary position of having to indict a federal law enforcement officer will be able to bring on the firepower necessary to make sure that the federal government doesn’t roll us simply through greater resources.”
The money raised through the organization will not go to the individual prosecutors or their political campaigns, they said Wednesday.
Scott Goodstein, a spokesperson for the coalition, said the money will be held by a “nonpartisan, nonprofit entity that is to be stood up in the coming days.” He said the prosecutors are “still working through” how the fund will be structured.
Krasner said it would operate similarly to how district attorneys offices receive grant funding for certain initiatives.
Most legal defense funds are nonprofit organizations that can receive tax-deductible donations. Those groups are barred from engaging in certain political activities, such as explicitly endorsing or opposing candidates for office.
Goodstein said the group is also being assisted in its fundraising efforts by Defiance.org, a national clearinghouse for anti-Trump activism. One of that group’s founders is Miles Taylor, a former national security official who, during the first Trump administration, wrote under a pseudonym about being part of the “resistance.”
‘Who benefits?’
In forming the coalition, Krasner inserted himself into a national controversy that other city leaders have tried to avoid.
His approach is starkly different from that of Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, a centrist Democrat who has largely avoided criticizing Trump. She says she is focused on her own agenda, and has not weighed in on the president’s deportation campaign.
Members of the mayor’s administration say they believe her restraint has kept the city safe. While Philadelphia has policies in place that prohibit local officials from some forms of cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, the Trump administration has not targeted the city with surges of ICE agents as it has in other jurisdictions — such as Chicago and Los Angeles — where Democratic leaders have been more outspoken.
Parker and Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel have at times been frustrated with Krasner’s rhetoric, according to a source familiar with their thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal communications.
That was especially true this month when Krasner hosted a news conference alongside Sheriff Rochelle Bilal. The pair made national headlines after Krasner threatened to prosecute federal agents — something he has vowed to do several times — and Bilal called ICE a “fake” law enforcement agency.
Bethel later released a statement to distance the Police Department from the Sheriff’s Office, saying Bilal’s deputies do not conduct criminal investigations or direct municipal policing.
The police commissioner recently alluded to Parker’s strategy of avoiding confrontation with the federal government, saying in an interview on the podcast City Cast Philly that the mayor has given the Police Department instruction to “stay focused on the work.”
“It is not trying to, at times, potentially draw folks to the city,” Bethel said. “Who benefits from that? Who benefits when you’re putting out things and trying to… poke the bear?”
As for Krasner’s latest strategy, the DA said he has received “zero indication or communication from the mayor or the police commissioner that they’re in a different place.”
“I feel pretty confident that our mayor and our police commissioner, who are doing a heck of a lot of things right,” he said, “will step up as needed to make sure that this country is not invaded by a bunch of people behaving like the Gestapo.”
