By Jack Tomczuk

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is co-founding a coalition of local prosecutors to support efforts to prosecute U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and other federal agents accused of criminal wrongdoing.

The organization is raising money and plans to convene in early February to strategize and share best practices, representatives said. Eight other district attorneys have signed onto the project, including Mary Moriarty, the top prosecutor in Minneapolis.

The group is known as Fight Against Federal Overreach, or FAFO, a play on the phrase ‘f–k around and find out,’ which Krasner often deploys or hints at when speaking about the Trump administration.

“We find ourselves in a moment when one of the most potent tools, one of the most effective tools to try to preserve democracy in the United States is state prosecutors,” Krasner said. “Why? Well, simply because, despite the misinformation you have heard from the mouth of the vice president, we do have the ability to bring state criminal charges against federal officials, federal officers and to prosecute those cases to conclusion.”

Moriarty did not appear at an announcement Wednesday morning, held over Zoom, though she was scheduled to speak. Krasner, perhaps the most outspoken critic of the Trump administration’s immigration policies among elected leaders in Philadelphia, was first to address press and supporters who logged into the teleconference. 

“We all know what time it is,” he added. “We all know what this moment is, and we all know that things are happening that should not be happening, for which people must be accountable, now or in the future.”

The White House’s “Rapid Response” account on X, formerly Twitter, featured a clip from the news conference and called it a plan to launch “a lawfare campaign against immigration agents.” The post referred to Krasner as “a seriously deranged individual.”

Soros-backed Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner convenes a Zoom call with other Radical Democrat prosecutors to plan a lawfare campaign against immigration agents.

This is a seriously deranged individual. pic.twitter.com/ue0BEyGhy6

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) January 28, 2026

Krasner had gone viral hours earlier for his comments Tuesday, during a briefing about the proposed “ICE Out” legislation in City Council, that ICE agents would be hunted down to answer for their crimes after Trump leaves office, like Nazis following the Second World War.

The DA’s quote attracted particular scorn from conservative influencers, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt took to X to inquire over whether the media would demand fellow Democrats denounce Krasner.

🚨Democrats are calling federal law enforcement agents “nazis” who need to be “hunted.” Will the media ask Dems to condemn?

“If we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down Nazis for decades…we will find your identities!” – Philly DA Larry Krasner pic.twitter.com/Jhkld7utMg

— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) January 28, 2026

In addition to Krasner and Moriarty, the FAFO coalition, so far, includes prosecutors based in Austin, Dallas, Tucson and several localities in Virginia.

A website, federaloverreach.org, prompts visitors to provide their email address for updates and solicits donations. Organizers said crowd-sourced funds will be managed by “a nonpartisan, nonprofit entity providing independent support to the project.”

Initially, the money will be used to pay for the February meeting, the district attorneys said on the Zoom call. Eventually, it may be allocated to help mount an investigation and prosecution of an ICE agent or other federal officer, they added.

The prosecutors acknowledged the complexity of bringing such a case, against likely resistance from the Trump administration.

Steve Descanto, commonwealth attorney for Virginia’s Fairfax County, recounted his personal involvement in the probe over the 2017 fatal shooting of Bijan C. Ghaisar by two U.S. Park Police officers.

“It’s incredibly difficult,” Descanto, a member of the FAFO group, said. “We started from the premise that we were not going to get any federal help, and we really did not.”

Descanto, Krasner and other members of the coalition insisted that they have the authority to criminal charge federal law enforcement and warned ICE agents against putting their faith in the White House’s promise of immunity.

The district attorneys framed themselves as guardians of individual rights and bulwarks against the Trump administration’s aggressive tactics.

“We know that this administration and its reign of terror will not last forever,” said José P. Garza, district attorney for Travis County, Texas, which includes Austin. “Collectively, we have the power to end the terror that too many Americans are experiencing, and we will.”