The Department of Homeland Security launched a failed operation that ensnared hundred , if not M , of U.S. protesters in what new documents show was as a sweeping , power - thirsty elbow grease before the 2020 election to bolster up President Donald Trump ’s spurious claims about a “ terrorist organization ” he incriminate his Democratic contender of supporting .
An internalinvestigative account , made public this calendar month by Sen. Ron Wyden , a Democrat of Oregon , details the finding of DHS lawyers concerning a antecedently undisclosed effort by Trump ’s acting secretary of homeland protection , Chad Wolf , to amass secret dossiers on Americans in Portland assist anti - racism protest in summertime 2020 spark off by the police execution of Minneapolis sire George Floyd .
The reputation describe attempts by top officials to tie protesters to an notional terrorist game in an apparent effort to boost Trump ’s reelection betting odds , raising concerns now about the ability of a sit president to co - opt billions of dollar bill ’ worth of domestic intelligence assets for their own political gain . DHS analyst recite orders to generate evidence of financial association between protesters in hands ; an crusade that , had they not failed , would have seemingly dish to legitimize President Trump ’s delusive claims about “ Antifa , ” an “ organisation ” that even his most truehearted intelligence officers fail to swot up up test copy ever existed .
Photo: Associated Press (AP)
“Did not find any evidence that assertion was true”
The DHS report offers a full accountancy of the intelligence operation activities encounter behind the scene of officers ’ protest containment ; “ perverted attempt , ” Wyden said , of Trump organisation officials encourage “ wild conspiracy theories ” to make up of a domesticated terrorist threat for the chairman ’s “ political gain . ” The paper draw the dossier generated by DHS as having detail the past whereabouts and the “ friend and followers of the subjects , as well as their interests ” — up to and including “ First Amendment speech activity . ” Intelligence analysts had internally raised care about the conclusion to accuse anyone caught in the streets by nonremittal of being an “ anarchist extremist ” specifically because “ sufficient fact ” were never found “ to support such a characterization . ”
One field cognitive operation analyst told interviewers that the chart were hastily “ contrive together , ” adding they “ did n’t even know why some of the people were arrested . ” In some cases , it was unreadable whether the arrests were made by police or by one of the several Union agencies on the ground . The analysts were never provide arrest affidavits or paperwork , a witness recite investigators , adding that they “ just work off the effrontery that everyone on the list was halt . ” Lawyers who look back 43 of the dossier incur it “ concerning , ” the report says , that 13 of them halt from “ nonviolent criminal offence . ” These included trespassing , though it was unclear to analysts and researcher whether the casing had “ any relationship to Union prop , ” the report articulate .
A footnote in the report submit that “ at least one attestator ” secernate investigators that dossier had been requested on people who were “ not arrested ” but only accused of scourge . Another , citing emails exchange between top intelligence service official , Department of State dossiers were produce “ on persons arrested having nothing to do with fatherland security or threat to officers . ”
question by research worker , the agency ’s chief intelligence policeman acknowledged fielding postulation by Wolf and his acting deputy sheriff , Ken Cuccinelli , to make dossiers “ against everyone participating in the Portland protest , ” regardless of whether they ’d been accused of any offense , the paper says . That police officer , Brian Murphy , then head of the agency ’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis ( I&A ) , told interviewers that he ’d turn down the theme , informing his hirer that he could only “ bet at people who were hold , ” and adding that it was something his post had done “ thousands ” of time before .
The DHS report , finalized more than a yr ago , includes descriptions of orders handed down to “ senior leadership ” instructing them to loosely hold the recording label “ violent antifa anarchists inspired ” to Portland protesters unless they had intel show up “ something unlike . ”
Once the dossiers were receive by the means ’s go forth terror center , it became clean-cut that DHS had no real way to tie the contestant to any terrorist activities , neither at home nor afield . Efforts to drum up grounds to support the government ’s call that a “ turgid meshwork was directing or financing ” the protesters — a task assigned to another building block , jazz as the Homeland Identities , Targeting and Exploitation Center , diverted away from its common work of analyze national security threats — “ did not regain any evidence that asseveration was on-key , ” the report says .
A Trumped-up Threat, a Trumped-up Homeland Security Department
awe of political toadies occupying fundamental intelligence role had been aired publically by former intelligence community member during the Trump governing body ’s early years , but their business organization were all but ignored by Senate Republicans during confirmation hearings that would ultimately impose serious reputational damage on a identification number of office that , for their own survival of the fittest , had long annul partizan tilt .
The report is base on interview with close to 80 employees conducted by attorneys puff from various agency components , including U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Coast Guard . The probe start in response to leaks of internal DHS emails in July 2020 that move questions from lawgiver about likely intelligence abuses , including the monitoring of journalist ’ body process online and the tolerant program of terrorist act - related speech to describe Americans lease in protest .
I&A is one of the Carry Nation ’s 17 intelligence community member overseen by the nation ’s “ top undercover agent , ” the music director of national intelligence , whose part enlist daily top - secret briefing for the president . The directorship was hold throughout the protests by John Ratcliffe , a Republican of Texas and celebrated Trump loyalist , whose nominating speech to the post was move back initially in 2019 over qualifications business organisation raised by lawgiver and career news official .
The dossiers , screw as Operational Background Reports , or OBRs , are known conversationally within the bureau as “ baseball game cards , ” the report allege . The labor of create them was handed , “ with little to no guidance on death penalty , ” to the means ’s Current and Emerging Threats Center , an analysis whole whose “ actionable intelligence ” is distributed widely throughout the authorities . consort to the report , the dossiers would ’ve been shared with , among others , the agency ’s Field Operations Division , which works tight with House and Senate committee staffers , and the Federal Protection Service , whose centre deputation is securing some 9,000 Union facility across the state . The extent to which entities outside the Union government were stand for to be involved is unclear ; however , the written report indicates that DHS nation and local pardner , which would of course include law enforcement , but also potentially organisation like National Governors Association , could have also been in the grummet .
fund to the tune of$1.5 billion , the Federal Protective Service ( FPS ) is comprised of grand of security officer drawn from private contractors such as Triple Canopy , a firm merged in 2014 with another declarer called Academi , previously have it off as Blackwater . Its staff notoriously let in elect warfighters recruit from among the Navy SEALS , the Army Rangers , and the Marines expeditionary military group MARSOC .
activate to wage protesters aim Union buildings in Portland — include the well - vandalized Hatfield Federal Courthouse — FPS personnel were eventually join by officers hailing from across the Union government , including some on loan by the U.S. Marshals Service tactical unit normally tasked with hold the arrest of the nation ’s most violent fugitive from justice . They converge for a mission dub “ Operation Diligent Valor , ” authorized underExecutive Order 13933 , supposedly to quail at “ anarchists and left - backstage extremist ” who ’d been driven by Floyd ’s murder to target U.S. monument commemorating slave owners and Confederate traitors — life-threatening someone , Trump say , advance a “ bang ideology ” paint the U.S. governance as “ basically unjust . ”
Floyd ’s destruction at the hands of Minneapolis police force officer Derek Chauvin , convicted of murder and doom to 22 and a half age in prison in 2021 , spark more than 100 days of continuous marches in Portland . Sporadic protest continued well into the next spring , frequently marked by nightly standoffs between protester toting bottles , yield , and fireworks and debauch - restraint squads gird with nightsticks , pepperspray , and “ energising impact munitions ” designed to vex , disorient , and compel submission through pain .
law would eventually torment up an unprecedented 6,000 documented use - of - force cases against the demonstrators , who in spell reportedly inflicted more than $ 2.3 million in price to Union building alone . Police scat off sound observers and physically beat diary keeper who suffer injury at the hands of federal broker gird with crowd control weapons as well . In response to the bad printing press , Justice Department lawyers filed a successful motion in motor inn give constabulary the power to force reporter off the streets .
account set about surfacing , meanwhile , of protesters being abduct near demonstration by piece jump out out of unnoted vans in military fatigues . After widely mobilize footage confirmed the report , DHSacknowledgedthe abductions , as well as the fact that agents had taken intentional steps to insure their identities stay confidential .
A peaceful protester in Portland was shot in the head by one of Donald Trump ’s secret police . Now Trump and Chad Wolf are weaponizing the DHS as their own occupying army to provoke violence on the street of my hometown because they think it meet well with right - wing media .
— Ron Wyden ( @RonWyden)July 16 , 2020
analyst would flow protesters ’ names into an array of databases , include LexisNexis , a dick used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents tohunt undocumented immigrants . Another prick , refer to as “ Tangles ” — a likely reference to the now - defunct Facebook app CrowdTangle — was used to “ [ compile ] information from the bailiwick ’s usable societal media profiles .
The report also states that dossiers were request on multiple journalists , include Benjamin Wittes , editor - in - boss ofLawfare .
Wittes was targeted for publish unclassified DHS materials , let in the initial escape that set off the investigation . Wittes had coauthoredan articleat Lawfare with Steve Vladeck , a University of Texas law professor , in July 2020 , which include leak direction — known as a “ job aid ” — discover DHS plans to act on Trump ’s executive order . The document , Lawfare reported , implicated “ at least parts of the word residential area ” in the “ monitoring and collect information on some protest activeness . ” Later making water obtained by theNew York Timesincluded a DHS memo that , among other things , sum tweet that had been published by Wittes .
One tweet , print on July 26 — a week after Lawfare published the guidance document — let in a leak email by DHS ’s play chief intelligence activity officer , relay orders to start name to all furiousness in Portland as the work of “ Antifa . ”
https://twitter.com/embed/status/1287343604038598656
As the summer night grow longer and the 2020 election near , the media drop less time focused on the causal agent of the manifestation — the suffocation of a Black father of five by a bloodless Minneapolis constabulary officer who was externally unmoved by Floyd ’s desperate pleas for air , or the heartrending rallying cry for his mother . headline shifted alternatively , as if on cue , to focus on the narrative craft by the prexy ’s flailing reelection campaign ; a pre - packed head game designed to chance on concern in voters ’ imaginativeness and tether Democrats to a fictitious terrorist terror .
Nothing could dissuade Trump from retain to disperse the claims , which his protagonist — most to this Clarence Shepard Day Jr. — continue to blindly conceive . “ In my account book it ’s nearly a part of their campaign , Antifa,”Trump saidin the last month before the election . “ The Democrats act like , gee , I do n’t know exactly what that is . ”
Trump ’s highest superior intelligence crony , John Ratcliffe , meanwhile , would go on to act as the only card leftwith a little helpfrom Sen. Lindsey Graham , the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee .
Shocking and alarming career intelligence officials , Graham posted a letter online forrader of the election ’s last debate . It contained a batch of Russian disinformation that a Republican - led citizens committee had disregarded as bogus four geezerhood earlier . patently , it focused on the only popular left on whom they could find any cloth with which to smear : Hillary Clinton , who had no election to lose .
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