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NYC mayor: We’ll take legal action if Trump sends officers

July 21, 2020 Jill Colvin and Colleen Long Associated Press
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the president is trying to score political points with his latest threat to cut federal dollars to Democratic-led cities. Photo: Paul Frangipane/Brooklyn Eagle
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President Donald Trump is planning to deploy federal agents to Chicago and possibly other Democrat-run cities, including New York, as he continues to assert federal power and use the Department of Homeland Security in unprecedented, politicized ways.

The threat is likely not serious but if he did follow through, New York City would take legal action, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday.

“I have to start by saying this president blusters and bluffs and says he’s going to do things and they never materialize on a regular basis,” de Blasio said.

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De Blasio said that if Trump did send federal officers to New York City, “it would only create more problems. It would backfire, it wouldn’t make us safer, and we would immediately take action in court to stop it.”

The Democratic mayor added, “From my point of view this would be yet another example of illegal and unconstitutional actions by the president. And we have often had to confront him in court and we usually win.”

State and local authorities in Oregon have charged in a lawsuit that masked federal officers have arrested people in Portland with no probable cause and whisked them away in unmarked cars. Trump defended the actions of the federal officers in Portland on Monday and said he would send officers to other cities including New York.

DHS is slated to send about 150 Homeland Security Investigations agents to Chicago to help local law enforcement deal with a spike in crime, according to an official with direct knowledge of the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.

In a tweet Sunday, Trump blamed local leaders for violence in Chicago and other cities.

“The Radical Left Democrats, who totally control Biden, will destroy our Country as we know it. Unimaginably bad things would happen to America,” Trump tweeted, referring to his likely Democratic opponent, Joe Biden. “Look at Portland, where the pols are just fine with 50 days of anarchy. We sent in help. Look at New York, Chicago, Philadelphia. NO!”

The move is Trump’s latest effort to use an agency — created after the Sept. 11 attacks to protect the country from terrorist threats — to supplement local law enforcement in ways that have alarmed critics.

Homeland Security agents have also been deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border along with National Guard troops during the crisis there.

But with the border largely shuttered because of the coronavirus and the number of illegal crossings plummeting, Trump has now turned the department onto what he sees as a threat within the U.S. and one that similarly plays to his base: violence following police reform protests that have rocked the nation since the death of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police.

In June, federal authorities in riot gear used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse crowds from Lafayette Square so the president could walk across the plaza and shoot a photo with a Bible outside a church. That land is federal property. But Portland and Chicago are not, though agents are supposed to be guarding federal buildings and other federal property.


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  1. StanChaz

    Trump Is desperate. And desperate people are dangerous. With his polls plunging, he’s flaying about like a fat orange fish out of water.

    As he enflames even more hate, fear and division he’s wrapping himself in the fake mantle of law and order – while handing out “get-out of jail” cards to his fellow criminal pals. Trump’s new “law & order” campaign slogan should be “Lock him up- unless he’s my partner in crime”.

    The scapegoat for loser Trump’s failures used to be Mexicans and immigrants. Now it’s our fellow Americans. They are not the enemy. That’s not what America is all about. The incompetence & desperation of an out-of-control Trump is what we need to fear instead. Trump insists on state’s rights when it comes to preventing all Americans from voting, and preaches that the states are on their own in the Covid crisis – to avoid his responsibility. But Federal storm troopers are just fine with him. Really? We don’t need the un-American nightmare of Federal storm troopers in our streets, acting as Trump’s secret private army, and snatching people into unmarked cars like in some banana republic. What we need is a real President, a President who cares more about America than about himself and his reelection.

    Patriot? Trump is about as much a true law & order / justice & peace President as he is a patriot – with his conveniently retractable bone-spurs.
    Leader? It’s the same with his lack of leadership & his drink-bleach-incompetence in the Covid crisis.
    He’s M.I.A. – missing in action, in both cases.

    Like some tinhorn dictator Trump loves the trappings of military parades, but when it comes to our troops he does nothing as Putin pays a bounty for Americans in body bags and interferes in our elections. Whose side is Donald really on? What hold does Putin have over traitor Trump?

    Trump not only needs a mask to cover his lying face, but he also needs a muzzle, a brain, and some basic human empathy. But no, with 140,000 Americans dead, with many millions out of work facing eviction and losing health insurance, what does loser Trump do? He peddles Goya beans from the resolute desk, plays golf, holds mass rallies in the middle of a pandemic, gets his marching orders from Putin and Fox Fake news, and worries about the statues of racist Confederate traitors. So sad, so sad …a sad excuse for a President.

    Don’t worry he says. It will all go away. What needs to go away is Trump. Trump needs to leave quietly in November, without further tearing apart this great nation for his own selfish interests. And to make that happen we need to register and vote for Joe Biden.

    July 22, 2020 at 4:50 pm
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