‘Chaos and division’: Biden decries clashes in Portland as federal officials defend efforts to end protests
Former Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the Trump administration was deploying Department of Homeland Security officers in Portland without clearly defined goals, even as department officials defended their efforts to eliminate violent protests.
“We have a president who is determined to sow chaos and division,” said Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee to challenge President Donald Trump on Nov. 3. “To make matters worse instead of better.”
Department officials defended their efforts to protect federal property and law enforcement officers, despite clashes with protesters that led to criticism of officers as “stormtroopers” or “the gestapo.”
Chad Wolf, acting secretary of Homeland Security, told reporters that 52 straight nights of violence in Portland necessitated federal officers to protect a federal courthouse downtown.
“These individuals are organized and they have one mission in mind: to burn down or to cause extreme damage to the federal courthouse and to law enforcement officers,” Wolf said.
Tim Murtaugh, a Trump campaign spokesman, blasted Biden as “siding with criminals” and accused him of being too weak to side with law enforcement officers under siege.
“What Joe Biden calls ‘peaceful protestors’ are actually left-wing anarchists who are assaulting police officers in Portland and, incredibly, Biden is siding with the criminals,” Murtaugh said. “That Biden would accuse law enforcement of ‘stoking the fires of division’ while the mob is literally setting fires to police buildings is unconscionable.”
The Department of Homeland Security deployed Federal Protective Service, Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to protect 9,000 federal buildings nationwide.
Richard Cline, deputy director of operations of the Federal Protective Service, said the officers wear police logos in block letters, patches that designate their agency within the department and identifying numbers rather than names because protesters have doxed 38 officers after seeing their names.
Despite their military appearance, Wolf said they are civilian police wearing the camouflage outfits from their routine assignments along the southern border.
“The smear attacks leveled against our officers are disgusting,” Wolf said. “These police officers are not stormtroopers. They are not the gestapo as some have described them. That description is offensive, it’s hyperbolic and it’s dishonest.”
The clashes have spurred calls in the Democratic House to investigate the deployment of federal authorities.
Biden acknowledged that federal officers have a duty to protect federal property. But he said the Obama administration, when he served as vice president, protected property “without resorting to these egregious tactics.”
“Now Homeland Security agents — without a clearly defined mandate or authority — are ranging far from federal property, stripped of badges and insignia and identifying markings, to detain people,” Biden said. “They are brutally attacking peaceful protesters, including a U.S. Navy veteran.”
The department’s inspector general is investigating an incident when officers in camouflage outfits detained a man on the street and drove him away in an unmarked car. Wolf welcomed the investigation because he said the officers performed as trained. The officers saw a group of violent protesters approaching and asked the man to come with them to a calmer area for questioning, Wolf said.
“We welcome the inspector general’s review,” Wolf said.