This is a developing story and will be updated.
Two Ohio congresswomen are slamming the FBI over reports that agents on Thursday searched the Cleveland offices of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, an organization that advocates for voting and labor rights and against outsized corporate power.
Agents also reportedly fanned out across the state to interview people who have worked with the collaborative and in some cases seized their electronic devices such as phones and laptops.
The FBI and the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Prentiss Haney, a board member of the organizing collaborative, confirmed to multiple news outlets that FBI actions happened on Thursday. He and others with the organization couldn’t immediately be reached.
Ohio Democratic U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown, who represents Cleveland, said her inquiries haven’t been answered, either.
“My office has contacted the FBI demanding information, and I am deeply concerned that this is an effort to use federal law enforcement to intimidate and halt voter registration and organizing efforts,” she said in a written statement. “This is an unprecedented attack on democracy: these raids must end immediately.”
The collaborative was formed in 2007.
“Ohio Organizing Collaborative is a grassroots people-centered power organization,” its website says. “We unite base-building community organizing groups, student associations and faith organizations, with labor unions, and policy institutes throughout Ohio. It is our mission to organize everyday Ohioans, building transformative power organizations for racial, social, and economic justice. Our vision is to build a democratic multi-racial populist governing coalition in Ohio.”
Brown said the searches, seizures and interrogations appeared to an effort to harass voting-rights groups ahead of November’s midterm elections.
“Unfortunately, this appears to be part of a systematic effort by (President Donald) Trump and (Director) Kash Patel’s FBI to attack our elections and perpetuate more myths of voter fraud — all to undermine and challenge any election result that Trump does not agree with. It’s an attack on the People.”
In a written statement, Ohio Democratic U.S. Rep. Emilia Sykes said the FBI action was “an apparent effort to use federal law enforcement to intimidate community organizers and halt voter registration. Voter registration and lawful voting by American citizens is not fraud.”
Sykes added, “This egregious federal overreach is another example of coordinated efforts to suppress voting rights and voter registration, and it amounts to an unprecedented attack on our democracy.”
Former Ohio Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is running against incumbent Ohio Republican U.S. Sen. Jon Husted in November, also said the FBI’s actions were highly disturbing — especially since the agency hasn’t explained what the organizing collaborative is supposed to have done wrong.
“Reports of the FBI raiding a voting rights organization in Ohio are deeply disturbing and are a transparent attempt at silencing Ohioans and their ability to vote in free and fair elections,” Sherrod Brown said in a written statement. “Federal law enforcement should never try to intimidate eligible voters from exercising their right to participate in democracy.
He said that the FBI should immediately make public any and all activities around these raids in Ohio.
“For years, Ohio has had safe and secure elections that have been administered in a bipartisan fashion. Any attempt to intimidate Ohio voters is wrong, and will not work. Millions of Ohioans are ready to hold Washington politicians accountable for voting time and again to raise the cost of gas, groceries, and utility bills,” he said.
This story is republished from the Ohio Capital Journal under a Creative Commons license. View the original article.
