'Abuse of Power': Trump and Barr to Deploy More Federal Agents to US Cities

Authored by commondreams.org and submitted by SpartanHeavy
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President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr announced Wednesday afternoon that the federal government is deploying U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents to Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, claiming the move is a response to criminal unrest.

"The FBI, ATF, DEA, U.S. Marshals service, and Homeland Security will together be sending hundreds of skilled law enforcement officers to Chicago to help drive down violent crime," the president said during prepared remarks at the White House.

TRUMP: "The FBI, ATF, DEA, US Marshals service, and Homeland Security will together be sending hundreds of skilled law enforcement officers to Chicago to help drive down violent crime." pic.twitter.com/0xijEEi5aG — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 22, 2020

Trump and Barr both tied rises in violent crime in U.S. cities to recent protests for Black lives and against police brutality that erupted after the police killing of George Floyd in May. Neither man provided any evidence to back up those claims.

AG Barr, like Trump before him, links the recent rise in violent crime in some cities to recent protests against police + calls for defunding, calling the increasing violence "a direct result" of it. He offers no evidence, nor does he say why some crimes are up and others down — Mark Berman (@markberman) July 22, 2020

The deployment announcement was largely panned by critics, who called the effort another sign of Trump's authoritarian approach to the presidency.

"In case you were wondering, this is precisely what fascism looks like," tweeted Los Angeles Times columnist David Lazarus.

New: Trump announces that Justice Department will surge "hundreds" of officers from FBI, ATF, DEA, US Marshals and DHS to Chicago to deal with "violent crime" as part of Justice Department's new Operation Legend (named after 4-year-old boy shot in Kansas City) — Evan Hill (@evanchill) July 22, 2020

During Wednesday's press conference on the expansion of the "Operation Legend" program, which began in Kansas City, Barr and acting secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf sought to distinguish the program from the ongoing clashes between DHS agents and protesters in Portland, Oregon.

But those assurances will have to do a lot to overcome the skepticism of local officials, especially as the number of agents expected to be deployed under the program is still unclear.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot warned on Tuesday that a Portland-style federal deployment would only make unrest in the city worse.

"What I understand at this point—and I caveat that—is that the Trump administration is not going to foolishly deploy unnamed agents to the streets of Chicago," said Lightfoot.

DHS officers have already been dispatched to Portland, Oregon, and other localities to protect federal property and monuments as Trump has lambasted efforts by protesters to knock down Confederate statutes. Trump has linked the growing violence in the streets with protests over racial injustice, though criminal justice experts say the spike defies easy explanation, pointing to the unprecedented moment the country is living through—with a pandemic that has killed more than 140,000 Americans, historic unemployment, stay-at-home orders, a mass reckoning over race and police brutality, intense stress and even the weather.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) on Wednesday led 116 of his colleagues in a letter (pdf) demanding Barr and Wolf answer their questions on the ongoing Portland deployment and any planned expansion of federal law enforcement programs in U.S. cities.

"This is not legitimate law enforcement under our Constitution but a shocking slide into authoritarianism and police state tactics," the letter reads, adding that "these new tactics are an outrageous assault on the liberties of the people and the police powers and political sovereignty of the states."

Trump and Barr's announcement follows over a week of speculation that federal agents would enter U.S. cities despite local resistance.

Former DHS spokesperson David Lapan told Politico Tuesday that he fears the ramifications of the president's new move to use federal agents for domestic law enforcement.

"It's overly militaristic, it's being seen in partisan political terms, and it's usurping the authorities of the local law enforcement and elected officials," said Lapan.

Advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) tweeted that the DOJ's use of federal agents for Trump's political goals was a clear reason to impeach the attorney general.

"Turning federal forces against racial justice protestors is what abuse of power looks like," CREW said. "Congress should waste no time in impeaching AG Barr before he goes further in carrying out President Trump's racist agenda."

johnnybiggles on July 22nd, 2020 at 23:07 UTC »

Tyranny of the minority.

But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.

-"They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45", Milton Mayer

Orbitingkittenfarm on July 22nd, 2020 at 22:26 UTC »

I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that the cities targeted are in states with strong potential VP candidates.

jest4fun on July 22nd, 2020 at 22:11 UTC »

Republicans sending/forcing federal troops into Democrat areas only.

That's party vs. party. Literally political Warfare!

This is Facism in the United States.

This is self evident.

The US is now a facist country under trump.

Yield not to facism. Resist.