U.S. Attorney's Office charged two Cop City activists under Trump's NSPM-7 domestic-terrorism framework

On June 12, 2026, a federal grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia indicted Katie Kloth, 39, and Tyler Norman, 42, on arson and civil disorder charges connected to a protest on May 12, 2022, at the Cobb County, Georgia, headquarters of Brasfield & Gorrie, the general contractor building the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, widely known as "Cop City." The Justice Department press release announcing the indictment stated: "This case is part of a nationwide National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 initiative," led by "Joint Task Force Vanguard." Kloth and Norman are accused of damaging the Brasfield & Gorrie facility and attempting to intimidate employees through "fire and explosives" during a protest of the contractor's role in building the facility.

NSPM-7 is the September 2025 directive President Trump signed tasking DOJ, the FBI, and over 4,000 Joint Terrorism Task Force personnel to investigate and disrupt individuals affiliated with movements the administration branded as domestic terrorism threats — including groups designated as "antifa." The directive authorized investigation on the basis of political speech and ideology and created the operational task force structure used to bring the June 12 charges. Kloth and Norman were charged for conduct that occurred four years before NSPM-7 existed, with the task force created under that directive serving as the investigative and prosecutorial vehicle.

The Atlanta Community Press Collective, which broke the story, noted the Cop City charges were the second case brought that explicitly cited the NSPM-7 framework — establishing a pattern of DOJ using the executive domestic-terrorism designation to pursue political protesters connected to the Stop Cop City movement, a multi-year campaign opposing the construction of the police training center. The originating NSPM-7 directive is recorded in the archive at entries/2025/09/25/federal-targeting-critics-with-government-power-57b8855b.md; the first use of the framework against MN anti-ICE protesters (June 16, 2026) is at entries/2026/06/16/federal-prosecution-of-protected-speech-8a129276.md.