Federal investigators have served subpoenas to left-wing influencer Hasan Piker and CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin as a part of a probe into their assist convoy journeys to Cuba earlier this yr, in keeping with a brand new report.
Piker, 34, and Benjamin, 73, are among the many greater than 40 Individuals below scrutiny by the Treasury Division’s Workplace of International Belongings Management, which is investigating whether or not the March flotilla to Havana violated US sanctions legislation by financing, coordinating, or delivering items to Cuba, Fox Information reported.
The so-called “Nuestra America Convoy” led to 20 tons of humanitarian assist to the struggling Caribbean island. Piker, a controversial streamer and democratic socialist, sang praises of the communist regime following the journey.
The subpoenas require Piker and Benjamin to provide monetary, logistical, and communications info associated to their journey to Cuba, in keeping with Fox.
Beneath America’s Cuban Asset Management Rules legislation, US residents are prohibited from unlicensed travel-related transactions and exporting items or providers to Cuba.
The legislation, nevertheless, presents restricted exceptions for humanitarian tasks, journalism, instructional packages and sure actions meant to help the folks of Cuba.
CodePink, an anti-war feminist group, helped manage the convoy to Cuba as a method to offer humanitarian assist to the nation following the Trump administration’s transfer to blockade the island final yr.
The group mentioned its members have but to be served subpoenas, claiming it adopted all the foundations through the humanitarian journey to Havana.
“We did nothing flawed throughout our March 2026 journey to Cuba,” the group mentioned in a press release. “Quite the opposite, we acted as ethical US residents making an attempt to convey some reduction to a inhabitants being intentionally starved by the merciless insurance policies of our personal authorities.”
Benjamin has additionally come below hearth over her alleged ties to Hamas and Iran. She has made no less than seven journeys to Gaza between 2009 and 2012 the place she met with Hamas officers, together with the group’s then-leader Ismail Haniyeh, publicly posted photographs present.
The activist slammed the Treasury’s subpoena as an assault on her group’s humanitarian work.
“The Trump administration is investigating folks for bringing medication to Cuban kids whereas defending insurance policies that deprive those self same kids of meals, gasoline, and primary medical provides,” she wrote on X. “If loving the Cuban folks is against the law, then hundreds of thousands around the globe are responsible too.”
The Treasury’s investigation marks a critical escalation from the Trump administration towards far-left activists who defend Cuba and different communist regimes, usually slamming the US for its actions towards international nations.
The investigations additionally comes because the Trump administration and Republican allies have ramped up threats towards Cuba, designated a state sponsor of terrorism, warning that the US might take navy motion in Havana.
Tensions shortly escalated final week after the US Justice Division issued an indictment towards former Cuban President Raúl Castro.
