Homeland Security chief boasts of ‘proactively’ rounding up protesters as crackdown widens
The point man for President Trump’s controversial crackdown on racial justice protests boasted that his agents “proactively” arrest suspects as the White House prepares to extend the to Chicago and elsewhere.
Chad Wolf, the acting Department of Homeland Security chief, claimed he has the right to clear protesters off the streets, whether there is evidence of any potential crimes or not.
“We are having to go out and proactively arrest individuals,” Wolf said during an interview on Fox News. “And we need to do that because we need to hold them accountable.”
Wolf also emphatically defended Trump’s contention that federal authorities have the right to unilaterally carry out law enforcement in cities, even when local and state elected authorities ask them to stay away.
He called it “ridiculous” to suggest they should abide by the longstanding rules against involving federal troops in domestic law enforcement.
“You need to hold individuals accountable,” he said. “When we don’t do that, I think we get what we see in Portland today.”
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