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DHS pins blame on local officials for federal government’s presence in Portland
At a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) press conference about “Violence, Chaos, and Anarchy in Portland,” agency leadership repeatedly blamed local officials for the federal government’s presence in the Oregon city.
The acting DHS secretary, Chad Wolf, focused much of his remarks on protestors who are targeting a federal courthouse and the federal government’s right to protect its property. He criticized Portland and Oregon lawmakers for taking “little to no action” in response to building damage.
When a reporter asked Wolf how the agency was trying to de-escalate tensions in Portland, he deflected the question and said he had offered resources to Portland’s mayor and Oregon’s governor.
Another reporter asked Wolf about criticism that the federal government’s actions are authoritarian, since the governor and mayor do not want DHS deployed there. Wolf said: “The fact that we are there is because local officials are not taking action.”
Wolf said since 4 July, federal law enforcement had arrested 43 people in the city. This includes federal officials outside of DHS, such as the US Marshals.
Wolf was also asked multiple times about Donald Trump’s vow on Monday to send more DHS personnel into other cities. Wolf stopped short of saying the president was wrong, but said DHS personnel had not been deployed to other cities and repeatedly stated the situation in Portland was “unique.”
Secretary of state Mike Pompeo described a meeting with British prime minister Boris Johnson today as “constructive”, but the mother of Harry Dunn, a teenage British motorcyclist who was killed in a collision with a US diplomat’s wife last year, was less positive about Pompeo’s opposite number.
Dominic Raab was a “lost child in an adult’s world” as he greeted Pompeo on Tuesday, Charlotte Charles said, having been at the gates of Downing Street to watch the American’s arrival.
“Words are not enough anymore,” she said.
Dunn died after a crash outside a US military base in Croughton, Northamptonshire, on 27 August 2019. Anne Sacoolas, 42, was charged with causing his death by dangerous driving but she left the UK days afterwards when the US government claimed she had diplomatic immunity. Sacoolas is the wife of an intelligence officer based at Croughton.
On Tuesday, a Downing Street spokeswoman said Johnson emphasised the need for justice for Dunn and his family.
“He said there was a strong feeling among the people of the UK that justice must be delivered,” she said.
Charles said she had come “to show Mr Pompeo and Mr Raab and Mr Johnson that I’m not just going to stick on my TV and watch them at home. It’s really important that we come here and let them know that Harry was important and they need to realise that.”
A request for the extradition of Sacoolas was rejected by the US in January. Then, Raab, the foreign secretary, said he had protested to the US ambassador and said: “We feel this amounts to a denial of justice, and we believe Anne Sacoolas should return to the UK … I also explained that the UK would have acted differently if this had been a UK diplomat serving in the US.”
Here’s more:
Bolton: no justification for DHS agents in Portland
Former national security adviser John Bolton has stepped into the row over Portland, saying there is no justification for the deployment of Department of Homeland Security forces on the streets of the Oregon city.
In an interview with the Guardian, Bolton pointed out that he served in the Reagan justice department, giving him an insight into the legal and practical issues involved. He said that even if the situation was so extreme it demanded federal involvement, the DHS was not the right department.
“The protection of federal courthouses now is the responsibility of the US Marshals Service, who are also responsible for physical protection for US judges, as part of the justice department,” said Bolton, who left the Trump administration in September after falling out with the president and subsequently wrote a bestselling tell-all book.
“If there were a threat to a US courthouse in Portland or anywhere else, you beef up the Marshals Service. It’s not like nobody ever gave any thought to this before. That’s what the marshals are there for, and the marshals are in constant coordination with local law enforcement.
“If a governor or mayor says, ‘Look, this is out of control, I need federal help,’ there are occasions when you do that. There are no such requests. I’m not saying everything’s hunky dory in Portland, Oregon, because it clearly is not. But I don’t see any justification for the deployment of the Department of Homeland Security personnel.”
Here’s a report from Chris McGreal, in Portland and speaking to some of the “Wall of Moms” who have turned out to join Black Lives Matter protests and thwart Trump’s federal agents:
Updated
at 3.39pm EDT
Donald Trump “cannot imprison Michael Cohen for writing a book”, the American Civil Liberties Union said, as the organization filed suit against the federal government.
The ACLU suit against the attorney general, William Barr, and the director of the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) follows court battles involving John Bolton, a former national security adviser, and Mary Trump, the president’s niece. They defeated attempts to stop publication by the White House and the Trump family respectively, and saw their tell-all books became instant bestsellers.
In a tweet on 2 July, Cohen said he was “close to completion of my book, anticipated release date will be late September”. A week later, the former top Trump aide was returned to prison after he had been released due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Cohen, 53 and Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, was convicted of crimes including lying to Congress and facilitating illegal payments to silence two women who alleged affairs with Trump, the adult film-maker and actor Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model.
Trump denies the affairs and ordering the payments.
Cohen went to prison in May 2019. He was released a year later, due to the coronavirus pandemic, and expected to complete his three-year sentence at home. Last week, however, the BOP said Cohen had “refused the conditions of his home confinement and as a result, has been returned to a BOP facility”.
Full report here…