CHICAGO — On the day after the “Broadview Six” indictment was filed in October charging a group of local Democratic officials and other protesters with conspiracy to impede law enforcement, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent whose vehicle was allegedly damaged in the incident texted a Facebook post about the charges to unidentified associates.

The post, from the anti-Trump “Occupy Democrats” Facebook page, showed Katherine “Kat” Abughazaleh, who at the time was running for Congress in the 9th District, holding a bullhorn, along with the headline: “BREAKING: NAKED OPPRESSION!”

“Trump’s Department of ‘Justice’ just INDICTED a Democratic congressional candidate with ‘CONSPIRACY’ because she protested and now she’s facing SIX TO EIGHT YEARS IN PRISON!” the post stated.

The ICE agent texted to the group, “Well, we’ll see how long I stay unnamed ...

“You’re gonna be famous bruh,” someone texted back.

“Only among lefties,” the agent responded.

The text exchange was included in a court filing late Thursday by attorneys for the four remaining defendants in the hot-button case, who had drawn the ire of federal prosecutors by asking for any communications from the White House or other officials in the administration of President Donald Trump about the charges.

It’s the second time an ICE agent’s posts following a high-profile incident during Operation Midway Blitz have been made part of a federal criminal case. In October, texts sent by Agent Charles Exum after he shot Marimar Martinez six times following a traffic crash in Brighton Park helped derail the assault case against her.

In the Broadview Six case, the defense argued in the motion Thursday the agent’s texts were another indication that people were paying attention to the arrests on a wider scale.

In addition to the texts, the defense alleged that days before the indictment was made public, the same agent wrote to three “senior ICE officials” to let them know that “several public office-holders and political candidates were indicted in this case based on his testimony.”

“Of note, Among the 6 defendants, there is a U.S. congressional candidate, a 45th ward Committee Person, and a Oak Park/Oak Brook Board of Trustees Member,” the agent wrote to the officials, who were not identified in the filing.

Prosecutors have blasted the defense’s “reckless” insinuations of undue political influence as “the product of fevered paranoia and delusional speculation,” arguing in a motion of their own last week that it was preposterous to believe that the White House would care about a group of low-level, local politicians.

In response, the defense said their request was no fishing expedition, but based on the documented track record of the Trump administration of bringing criminal prosecutions to satisfy “personal vendettas.”

They noted that shortly after Abughazaleh posted video of the incident in Broadview, top White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson “publicly targeted” her in an official statement saying what Abughazaleh had done was not First Amendment-protected speech, but “a crime.”

Todd Blanche, Trump’s now-interim U.S. attorney general following Pam Bondi’s firing on Thursday, had emailed other officials about protest activity in Chicago calling protesters “domestic terrorists,” the defense motion stated. He also provided a quote in a press release on the Broadview Six case, saying, “No one is above the law, and no one has the right to obstruct it.”

“Put plainly, one would have to be living under a rock to not recognize that in these unprecedented times, the current Administration has repeatedly placed its heavy thumb on the scales of justice in an effort to use the Department’s formidable criminal apparatus as a weapon against those it views as its political enemies,” the defense motion stated.

U.S. District Judge April Perry is scheduled to hold a status hearing in the case on Tuesday. A jury trial is scheduled to begin May 26.

The Broadview Six indictment is the last high-profile federal criminal case to stem from Operation Midway Blitz and has been a particularly thorny one for the U.S. attorney’s office, which has so far failed to secure a single conviction against protesters and others accused of assaulting or threatening agents.

In addition to Abughazaleh, the remaining defendants are Andre Martin, who served as Abughazaleh’s deputy campaign manager; Democratic Oak Park Trustee Brian Straw; and 45th Ward Democratic Committeeman Michael Rabbitt.

Last month, Perry granted a request from the U.S. attorney’s office to dismiss charges against Catherine Sharp, a onetime candidate for Cook County Board, and Joselyn Walsh, a part-time garden store worker and singer.

According to the 11-page indictment, the group surrounded an ICE vehicle outside the Broadview facility during a Sept. 26 protest and “banged aggressively” on the vehicle’s side and back windows, hood and doors before they “crowded together in the front and side of the Government Vehicle and pushed against the vehicle to hinder and impede its movement.”

Prosecutors allege the protesters scratched the vehicle’s body, broke a side mirror and a rear windshield wiper and etched the word “PIG” into the paint — though none of those charged in the indictment is accused of specifically causing that damage.

The indictment includes the conspiracy count, which carries a maximum sentence of six years in federal prison, as well as several other counts of forcibly impeding a federal officer, each punishable by up to one year in federal prison.

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