Santa Fe Reporter Journalist Reflects On The Trump Administration’s Conspiracy Investigation That Upended His Life and Career

A reporter at WW's sister paper was arrested while covering the J-20 protest in Washington, D.C. Federal prosecutors recently dropped all the charges against him.

Photographers gather around a burning trash can in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 20, 2017. (Corey Pein)

A journalist at WW's sister paper, Santa Fe Reporter, covered protests of President Donald Trump's inauguration in Washington, D.C. as a freelance writer. He was arrested and indicted for covering the demonstrations.

Last month, the federal government dropped those charges. And the reporter, Aaron Cantú, is reflecting on the weight of state censorship.

Cantú recalls more than a year of feeling constantly watched and restrained from doing his job in a personal essay for SFR.

"Even though my charges have gone away, writing this is hard," he says. "This pounding in my chest, this trembling hand and sour stomach and sweaty tunnel vision are what it feels like to have your freedom of speech curtailed by the state."

The Jan. 20, 2017, protests against the inauguration of President Donald Trump were met with heavy-handed police tactics and ended with windows broken and hundreds of people in jail, including both protesters and journalists.

SFR hired Cantú two months after his arrest in D.C. He was charged with eight felonies under an anti-rioting statute that the federal government used to allege he had been involved in a conspiracy to start a riot in the nation's capital.

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