OPINION — The threatened Trump administration introduction of uninvited federal law enforcement officers into cities across the United States may already be underway, but at the same time it has taken a very political tone.
Portland, Oregon’s demonstrations began May 28, after George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis and have continued ever since. They began as a public display against police brutality, which led to a change in police leadership, but the protests have continued on an almost nightly basis.
An article in last Saturday’s Portland’s newspaper, The Oregonian, claimed, “The images that popular national media feeds, however, come almost exclusively from a tiny point of the city: a 12-block area surrounding the Justice Center and federal courthouse. And they occur exclusively during late-night hours in which only a couple hundred or fewer protesters and scores of police officers are out in the city’s coronavirus-hollowed downtown.”
Portland has a long history of demonstrations going back to the 1970s against the Vietnam War. In 1985, the city was referred to as “Little Beirut” by the Bush administration for demonstrations that accompanied visits by Vice President Dan Quayle and later President George H.W. Bush. In 2011, “Occupy Portland,” a camp out in downtown squares, lasted for two months.
Trump’s November 2016 election win was followed by three nights of demonstrations, two of which turned into riots. And in January 2017, the Portland Women’s March following Trump’s inauguration drew an estimated 70,000 demonstrators. In March 2018, Portland’s part in the nationwide gun control march generated by high school students following the shootings at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School drew over 12,000 protesters to a downtown demonstration.
The recent starting point for federal involvement apparently began over this past July 4 weekend. Anti-police demonstrations went into the evening with protesters in the downtown square outside Portland’s Justice Center and federal courthouse. Some of the protesters set off firecrackers and burned the American flag while speakers talked of racism and police brutality. Some of the fireworks were thrown at the federal buildings and police warned the crowd members not “to engage with the federal courthouse.”
Acting Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cuccinelli, appearing on CNN this past Sunday, claimed his department had received around July 4, “locally generated” intelligence regarding “planned attacks” on federal facilities.
Yesterday, President Trump falsely told reporters that law enforcement components from the Department of Homeland Security have “been there three days, and they really have done a fantastic job in a very short period of time.”
In fact, units from Customs and Border Protection (CBP), tactical teams from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and a Special Operations Group from the U.S. Marshals Service have been in Portland for more than two weeks to support Federal Protective Service personnel in their job to protect federal buildings.
In that time period, nightly demonstrations in front of those buildings have increased along with graffiti, some broken glass and more firecrackers.
Trump also said when the federal enforcements arrived, “Portland was totally out of control. “The Democrats — the liberal Democrats running the place had no idea what they were doing. They were ripping down — for 51 days, ripping down that city, destroying the city, looting it.”
Last Wednesday, when Trump mentioned Portland, he described it as being “very rough.” He then said, “They [local public leaders] called us in and we did a good job, to put it mildly.” That, too, was untrue.
Portland did not call for help from Washington. Instead, Oregon Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, Democratic Reps. Earl Blumenauer and Suzanne Bonamici, and Mayor Donald Wheeler all have called for the added Department of Homeland Security personnel to leave.
There are "dozens if not hundreds of federal troops descending upon our city, and what they're doing is they are sharply escalating the situation," Wheeler said. "Their presence here is actually leading to more violence and more vandalism."
Oregon Democratic Governor Kate Brown went so far last Thursday to say that in sending federal units to Portland that “Trump is looking for a confrontation in Oregon in hopes of winning points in Ohio or Iowa.”
Yesterday at the White House, Trump took the rhetoric up a notch by calling the protestors anarchists, “who hate our country.” He then claimed “the politicians out there, yes, they’re weak, but they’re afraid of these people. They’re actually afraid of these people. And that’s why they say, ‘We don’t want the federal government helping.’”
Has Portland been a testing ground for something bigger?
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Sunday on Fox News, “You’ll see something rolled out this week as we start to go in and make sure that the communities, whether it’s Chicago or Portland, or Milwaukee, or someplace across the heartland of the country, we need to make sure our communities are safe.”
Trump, this week said, “Well, I’m going to do something — that, I can tell you. Because we’re not going to let New York and Chicago and Philadelphia and Detroit and Baltimore and all of these — Oakland is a mess. We’re not going to let this happen in our country, all run by liberal Democrats.”
He closed by making it even more political, when he said, “And you know what? If Biden got in, that would be true for the country. The whole country would go to hell. And we’re not going to let it go to hell.”
What’s most troubling, is that the groundwork was set for all this months ago.
The White House has been planning to use Department of Homeland Security law enforcement personnel to quell demonstrators in American cities ever since June 1, when Attorney General William Barr had to use a pick-up team of National Guardsmen, U.S. Marshals, U.S. Bureau of Prisons and DEA agents to clear the way across Lafayette Park in Washington so President Trump could have a photo op in front of St. Johns Church holding a bible.
On June 26, Trump signed an Executive Order called “Protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues and Combating Recent Criminal Violence,” which said, “It is the policy of the United States to prosecute to the fullest extent permitted under Federal law, and as appropriate, any person or any entity that destroys, damages, vandalizes, or desecrates a monument, memorial, or statue within the United States or otherwise vandalizes government property.”
The laws cited include a section which protects "any property" of the United States or an agency or department thereof; another section relates to anyone who conspires with others to carry out such a crime or aids those who do.
The issue has been just how far can you take the authorizations mentioned in the June 26, Executive Order?
This week, in an appearance on Fox and Friends, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf took aim, as Trump has, at the Democratic “local leaders” in Portland. Wolf said, “What we know is that the local leaders have fostered the environment that allows these individuals to again attack the courthouse and do these very violent acts, destructive acts, night after night after night.”
Although Wolf said he knew his legal authority was limited to protection of federal buildings, property and people on the property, he said he was going to investigate and “arrest and hold those accountable.” Does that include local leaders who “fostered the environment?”
As for other cities, Wolf said, “We don’t need invitations by mayors or state governors to do our job…Whether they like it or not, that is our responsibility…If you are not doing your job at some point we will have to take action and make sure that those communities are safe.”
Yesterday, the Chicago Tribune reported some 150 federal security agents were to be sent to Chicago to aid in crime fighting. Trump yesterday referred to the 18 killings over the past weekend in Chicago, and asked, “Would you say they need help after this weekend?”
Reacting last week to the Trump administration moves, House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement, “We live in a democracy, not a banana republic. We will not tolerate the use of Oregonians, Washingtonians – or any other Americans – as props in President Trump’s political games.”
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