Acting secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf picked a bad day to resume his fallacious criticisms of Portland protestors and politicians as a threat to national safety and security. Even as he again ignored the many, many accusations of abuse by federal agents deployed to the city — including the beating and assault of peaceful protestors, as well as the police state-like abduction of citizens off the street in unmarked vans — bombshell allegations by a former Homeland Security official added to existing evidence that Wolf and other DHS officials have been worse than derelict in their duty to keep the nation safe.
According to former DHS intelligence head Brian Murphy’s complaint as reported by The New York Times, high-ranking DHS officials directed “agency analysts to downplay threats from violent white supremacy and Russian election interference.” On the first issue, “the department’s second-highest ranked official, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, ordered Mr. Murphy to modify intelligence assessments to make the threat of white supremacy ‘appear less severe’ and include information on violent ‘left-wing’ groups and antifa. The Washington Post notes that Cuccinelli “on various occasions instructed him to massage the language in intelligence reports ‘to ensure they matched up with the public comments by Trump on the subject of ANTIFA and ‘anarchist’ groups.”
Let’s put aside for the moment DHS involvement in downplaying interference by Russia, which obviously fits into a years-long Trump administration effort. The idea that the Trump administration actively sought to downplay the threat of white supremacist violence means that they have taken a danger to the country and greatly amplified it. Reports like this recent one in Politico had already reported on such a White House effort, but that a DHS official has made it the subject of a whistleblower complaint should help focus public attention on what an abomination this truly is. As a rising tide of right-wing violence has swept across the country, the president and top security officials essentially chose to give these murderers and racists a helping hand. Not only did they seek to downplay a true threat, they sought to elevate another, far less serious one in its place: that posed by antifa and anarchists, in an effort to support the president’s re-election efforts based on conjuring up an imaginary insurrection by the left.
As I described in yesterday’s post, Portland has already experienced what can happen when a president encourages his supporters and right-wing militia types to engage in violence against those with whom they disagree. That the White House has essentially made it policy to downplay and de-prioritize the federal government’s role in keeping Americans safe from right-wing extremists is not just another scandal. When the government pulls its punches against individuals and groups who embrace and enact insurrection, mayhem, and murder, it has failed in its basic duties. The irony couldn’t be greater: even as DHS leader Wolf falsely accuses Portland’s leadership of encouraging violence, Wolf has overseen a department that has abdicated its responsibility to keep America safe from the actual domestic terrorists who seek us harm.