A leftist Senate hopeful could be in hot water over his ally’s on-camera admission to doxxing a federal immigration agent, which is potentially a federal crime.
Nebraska U.S. Senate candidate Dan Osborn, who is running as an independent but has numerous close ties with Democrats, already faced a scandal earlier this year when it turned out that he was apparently lavishing large amounts of campaign funds on various family members, including his wife’s consulting firm. Now there’s video of Ruark Hotopp, a federal employee and union boss, who is tied to Osborn’s campaign communications director, chortling about doxxing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent.
“I don’t have any bulls**t ICE agents that have been doxxed; I only have the one,” Hotopp said. “Just one.” Based on his subsequent comments, it seems that the ICE agent had identified some corruption in the union and Hotopp doxxed him as part of a personal vendetta.
Indeed, the agent whom Hotopp targeted was already at risk because he shot a radical leftist activist while the activist was trying to run him over. Notably, 18 U.S. Code § 119 imposes punishments of fines or imprisonment on those who deliberately make federal officers’ personal information known with the intent to cause harm. Hotopp was able to dox the ICE agent in question because the latter was a part of Hotopp’s union. Hotopp laughed repeatedly as he described his doxxing of the agent, and his discussion of this with a member of Osborn’s campaign.
Hotopp clarified he doxxed “the one that shot Renee Good,” an ICE agent who was a member of his union. “We represented those guys for years and that guy in particular used to threaten to turn us all in for public corruption and then we got him on video shooting someone in the face.” Hotopp conveniently left out any context on the shooting, but it seems clear he was trying to hit back at the agent for making accusations of corruption.
The problem with Hotopp’s Renee Good narrative is that we have video of the incident, showing that federal officers repeatedly tried to get Good to step out of her vehicle, which she refused to do as she and her partner taunted them. When one agent reached the front of Good’s vehicle, she gunned it into him in a potentially lethal attack, causing him to shoot at her in self-defense as he went down under the impact. Hotopp can lie all he wants — we have the proof.
It is not clear if Osborn publicly condemned Good’s death, but he did talk as if violent activist Alex Pretti, who died while assaulting federal immigration enforcement soon after, was an innocent victim.
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Hotopp added, “So I was telling McCollister about it; he’s like, ‘Do you got that guy’s information?’ I said, ‘I absolutely do.’ He’s like, ‘Alright, I’ll take it from here, chief.’” Dan McCollister is the campaign communications director for Osborn, according to Townhall. McCollister denied having been complicit in doxxing the agent when Townhall asked him about it, and also claimed Osborn was ignorant and innocent.
It does not appear Hotopp has an official position with the Osborn campaign, though Hotopp spoke at Osborn’s campaign launch event while wearing an “Osborn For Senate” shirt, as seen in a photo published by the Omaha World-Herald and a video of the announcement.
Hotopp’s union also endorsed Osborn.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) union write-up for Hotopp labels him the national vice president of the AFGE District 8. Hotopp was a contractor with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for eight years before the agency hired him as an official employee in 2013, per the writeup. AFGE Local 3928 made him president for the first time in 2018, a position he still evidently holds, and he became president of AFGE National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council 119 in 2022 as well.
It appears not only that federal authorities should investigate bringing charges against Hotopp for doxxing the ICE agent, but thereby also clarifying the involvement of the Osborn campaign, but that maybe the union needs some scrutiny for corruption.
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