chad wolf dhs

see portland, secret police

SEE caputo

NO MERRI

pension plan?

baby jail?

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chad test jan 6 comm before txt gone

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LI 12 25

chad-f-wolf

# Chad Wolf

3rd degree connection3rd

Fmr DHS Acting Secretary. Executive Director, Chief Strategy Officer & Chairman of Homeland Security at AFPI. Founder & President of Wolf Global Advisors

America First Policy Institute

Southern Methodist University

Washington, District of Columbia, United States Contact info

About

Extensive government and management experience in public and private sectors. Proven leader with ability to analyze complex issues, create and articulate vision and motivate teams to embrace it. In-depth expertise in developing legislative and regulatory strategies to achieve specific business objectives. Regarded as a key advisor and problem solver that performs well under pressure. Keen understanding of the Washington political environment and the ability to navigate successfully. Excellent judgement and decision-making skills.Extensive government and management experience in public and private sectors. Proven leader with ability to analyze complex issues, create and articulate vision and motivate teams to embrace it. In-depth expertise in developing legislative and regulatory strategies to achieve specific business objectives. Regarded as a key advisor and problem solver that performs well under pressure. Keen understanding of the Washington political environment and the ability to navigate successfully. Excellent judgement and decision-making skills.…see more

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Endorsed by 4 colleagues at U.S. Department of Homeland SecurityEndorsed by 4 colleagues at U.S. Department of Homeland Security](https://www.linkedin.com/in/chad-f-wolf/overlay/urn:li:fsd_skill:%28ACoAAACvN4ABiw1cU_ivViSM0R6Nyhc3GYQjVMQ,1%29/endorsers?profileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_profile%3AACoAAACvN4ABiw1cU_ivViSM0R6Nyhc3GYQjVMQ&tabIndex=2&modalTabIndex=2)

Endorsed by Andrew Howell and 4 others who are highly skilled at thisEndorsed by Andrew Howell and 4 others who are highly skilled at this](https://www.linkedin.com/in/chad-f-wolf/overlay/urn:li:fsd_skill:%28ACoAAACvN4ABiw1cU_ivViSM0R6Nyhc3GYQjVMQ,2%29/endorsers?profileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_profile%3AACoAAACvN4ABiw1cU_ivViSM0R6Nyhc3GYQjVMQ&tabIndex=1&modalTabIndex=1)

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an 11 25

no lnx

Trump ally's claim about 'left-wing violence' just doesn't add up

Former acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf testifies in the Senate. Picture: Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution.

Jordan GreenNovember 02, 2025 |

Former acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf’s appearance before a Senate hearing on political violence this week resurfaced inconvenient remarks for a witness called by Republicans intent on painting rising political violence as a left-wing problem.

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) read back Wolf’s Senate testimony from five years ago.

“White supremacist extremists, from a lethality standpoint over the last two years … are certainly the most persistent and lethal threat, when we talk about domestic violent extremists,” Wolf said at the time.

On Tuesday, before the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, chaired by Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO), Wolff offered a strikingly different assessment.

“The increase in politically motivated violence over the last several years has been driven largely by radical, left-wing extremist groups and individuals that believe violence is a legitimate means to achieve political goals,” Wolf testified.

Wolf is now executive vice president of the America First Policy Institute. Founded in 2021 and closely aligned with Trump, former leaders include Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, Secretary of Agriculture Brook Rollins and Attorney General Pam Bondi.

In a statement to Raw Story, Wolf did not disavow his 2020 assessment on white supremacist violence, but said: “America has experienced a historic rise in left-wing violence, especially following President Trump’s second election victory.”

At the time of Wolf’s September 2020 hearing, the U.S. had experienced a series of mass shootings by white supremacists, including Patrick Crusius, who killed 23 people, mostly Latinos, at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas in 2019, and Robert Bowers, who killed 11 at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018.

Both killers echoed Donald Trump’s rhetoric depicting immigrants and refugees as an “invasion” or “invaders.”

U.S. counterterrorism officials also took note of the 2019 massacre carried out by Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 Muslims at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Crusius cited Tarrant as an inspiration. So did Payton Gendron, who killed 10 African Americans at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y. in 2022.

Tarrant’s attack catalyzed the emergence of the term “saints” among white supremacists to glorify terrorists. The U.S. Justice Department is currently prosecuting three Terrorgram leaders on terrorism-related charges.

“White supremacist violence is clearly not the primary threat facing our country today,” Wolf told Raw Story. “All you have to do is look at the data, which has changed significantly in the last five years.”

Wolf cited incidents often mentioned by the administration and allies to make the case that political violence now emanates from the left: the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, two attempts on Trump’s life, the attempted assassination of conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and attacks on centers that offer an alternative to abortion services.

He did not cite the murder of Minnesota Democratic state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband by an abortion opponent; a recent death threat against Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) by a Jan. 6 rioter; or the bludgeoning of Paul Pelosi, husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), by a QAnon follower.

Nor did Wolf mention some 1,500 individuals pardoned by President Trump over the Jan. 6 assault on Congress.

William Braniff, a former director of DHS’ Center for Prevention Programs under President Joe Biden testified alongside Wolf.

Braniff agreed that violent incidents are on the rise. But he told the subcommittee, “Violent events do not fit neatly into any one ideological category.”

Braniff noted that DHS contracted with the University of Maryland in 2005 to create a global terrorism database, by congressional mandate. In March, the Trump administration canceled funding.

Drawing on the database, Braniff said: “This year, compared to last year, terrorism events are up 67 percent. Fatalities are up nearly 150 percent. Americans are dying from ISIS-inspired, white supremacist, antisemitic, anti-government, anti-vax, anti-law enforcement and nihilistic attacks.”

‘Black Lives Matter and antifa riots’

In 2020, when Wolf flagged white supremacist violence, he was overseeing DHS as the first Trump administration deployed federal agents against protesters in Portland, Ore., a harbinger of the current standoff at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the city.

On Tuesday, Sen. Schmitt and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) cited rioting related to protests against the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020, a familiar Republican talking point.

“There is an epidemic of politically motivated violence,” Cruz said. “And the politically motivated violence in this country is overwhelmingly emanating from the left. We saw that during the Black Lives Matter and antifa riots across the country, as cities across America burned.”

Schmitt complained that some studies of political violence “systematically ignore antifa and Black Lives Matter riots.”

Michael Knowles, a podcast host at the conservative outlet The Daily Wire, complained in testimony that “the Black Lives Matter riots, overtly leftist demonstrations that left dozens of people dead … fail to show up on registers of left-wing political violence.”

Cruz, Schmitt and Knowles did not delve into who was responsible for such violence. The data suggests they were presenting an incomplete picture.

Drawing on data provided by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), and multiple news reports, Raw Story counted 34 deaths plausibly linked to racial justice protests and unrest in 2020, not counting the police killings that sparked protests. Of those, three appear to involve perpetrators directly linked to Black Lives Matter, “antifa” or their supporters.

On May 28, 2020, the second night of rioting in Minneapolis, rioters set fire to a pawnshop. The charred remains of 30-year-old Oscar Lee Stewart Jr. were found in the ruins. Montez Terriel Lee was convicted of arson and sentenced to a decade in prison.

The following month, 16-year-old Antonio Mays Jr. was shot inside a stolen Jeep Cherokee that sped through an area of Seattle known as the CHAZ — Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone — and occupied by protesters. No charges have been brought, but bystander video appears to implicate an activist security team patrolling amid fears of a right-wing attack.

In late August 2020, Aaron “Jay” Danielson, a member of the far-right group Patriot Prayer, was fatally shot in Portland, Ore. Michael Reinoehl, the self-described “antifa” shooter, claimed self-defense. Before he could be apprehended, Reinoehl was killed by federal agents, an event President Trump described as “retribution.”

Danielson’s death is the only politically motivated homicide in the U.S. linked to an identified antifascist in the past quarter-century.

In contrast, one study found that white supremacists and other right-wing extremists killed at least 329 between 1994 and 2020.

The circumstances of Danielson’s shooting remain unclear. As noted by ACLED, Trump supporters were staging a car caravan through downtown Portland, and some right-wingers “sprayed pepper spray and shot paintball guns at counter-demonstrators rallying in support of the BLM movement and against police brutality, as well as journalists.”

The entry also notes video showing right-wing demonstrators driving vehicles through left-wing counter-demonstrators attempting to block the streets.

‘Might shoot looters’

Eight other deaths in 2020 could be linked to racial justice protests, if not directly.

In some, civilian bystanders were killed by criminals who appeared to be exploiting chaos. Victims include David Dorn, a retired police captain in St. Louis whose widow spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention; Chris Beaty, a former college football player murdered in Indianapolis while assisting a woman being mugged; and Marvin Francois, a photographer killed in a robbery while leaving a protest in Kansas City.

Among the most shocking deaths associated with the 2020 protests is that of 8-year-old Secoriea Turner, shot by an alleged Bloods gang member manning a barricade in the area where Rayshard Brooks was killed by Atlanta police. Julian Conley was convicted of murder and other offenses, and sentenced to life in prison.

But in at least 23 cases — roughly two thirds — Raw Story found that perpetrators of unrest-related deaths were not linked to Black Lives Matter, antifa or their supporters. They include five people killed by police, one killed by the National Guard, others killed by motorists and shopkeepers, a man with severe mental illness, and a security guard for a news crew.

In one example, Steven Carillo, an airman active in the far-right Boogaloo movement, took advantage of unrest after Floyd’s death to murder David Patrick Underwood, a federal security officer guarding the federal courthouse in Oakland, Calif., and Damon Gutzwiler, a Santa Cruz County deputy sheriff attempting to serve a warrant.

Raw Story’s analysis tallied 11 Black Lives Matter protesters killed: roughly equal to the number of unaffiliated civilians.

Two — Summer Taylor and Robert Forbes — were struck by vehicles. Barry Perkins III was dragged by a tractor-trailer. Others, including James Scurlock and Italia Impinto, were shot.

Garrett Foster, an Air Force veteran marching with BLM protesters in Austin, Texas on July 25, 2020, was fatally shot by Daniel Perry, a former soldier who reportedly searched for locations of protesters and told a friend he “might go to Dallas to shoot looters.” Perry was convicted of murder, then pardoned by Gov. Greg Abbott.

Perhaps most memorably, Kyle Rittenhouse fatally shot two BLM supporters during unrest in Kenosha, Wis. in 2020. He was acquitted on all charges.

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/trump-linked-think-tank-scrambling/

tom b raw an 11 22

According to an examination of its most recent tax filings, a think tank stocked with former Donald Trump White House advisors and supporters is falling way short of reaching its financial goals and bills are starting to pile up, reports the Daily Beast.

As Roger Sollenberger of the Beast is reporting, the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) was created to establish policies for a 2024 Trump presidency as well as plan to quickly staff a new Trump administration that can hit the ground running.

However, with the former president now struggling to maintain support in light of a disastrous midterm election that was blamed in part on him, AFPI is facing a cash crunch.

"Formed last year by a cadre of Trump administration officials and known informally as a 'White House in waiting,' initially announced a first-year operating budget of $20 million. But according to its 2021 tax statement, the group raised less than three-quarters of that amount, reporting about $14.9 million in total contributions," Sollenberger wrote before adding, "That may sound like a decent haul, but more than $10 million of that amount came from 10 anonymous donors, with the largest single source giving $3 million. (AFPI is not required to make the names of its contributors public.) Trump donors accounted for $1 million, in the form of a transfer last June from his Save America leadership PAC."

"The filing also reveals about $10.8 million in expenses. Around $4.4 million went to costs associated with sustaining its sprawling staff—[Brooke] Rollins raked in about $417,000 in salary, more than double the second-highest paid official. The second-largest single line item was $2 million to a vague “other program expenses.” AFPI also dropped a little more than $600,000 on lobbying, and the group shelled out more than $2 million combined for fundraising and events," the report continued.

The report notes that the staff of AFPI is loaded with Trump hangers-on including former White House adviserKellyanne Conway, "former acting head of the Department of Homeland Security Chad Wolf, former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, former Small Business Administration chief Linda McMahon, former director of the National Economic Council Larry Kudlow and former Trump spiritual adviser Paula White-Cain."

Sollenberger adds "the news of AFPI’s shortfall comes as Trump himself struggled to gin up small-dollar donor support in the months ahead of his 2024 announcement. And if the former president can’t consolidate power within MAGA world, this White House in waiting may have to wait a little longer."

You can read more here.

ny post BS

former President Donald Trump is set to return to Washington, DC, later this month for the first time since leaving office, according to a new report.

The 45th president’s visit will be centered around a July 26 event for the America First Policy Institute, where he will be giving a keynote address, Axios reported Thursday.

While the event is invitation-only and will not be open to the public, it will be livestreamed and open to the press. The specific location of the event has not yet been released.

Trump’s remarks are scheduled for 3 p.m. on the second day of theresearch institute’s policy summit, which is reportedly set to highlight lowering energy and gas prices, bringing down inflation, combating crime and the border, as well as the “control” of children’s education, according to the report.

Other attendees and guest speakers are expected to feature former Trump administration officials including but not limited to former senior counsel Kellyanne Conway, former National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe, former Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf,former National Economic Council DirectorLarry Kudlow, former Domestic Policy Council Director Brooke Rollins,as well as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga..

current members of Congress including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Sens. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), James Langford (R-Okla.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) are also expected.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/capitol-riots-police-declined-help-january-6/

cbs no lnx

POLITICS

Former DHS chief Chad Wolf says Capitol Police initially rejected help on January 6

BY GRACE SEGERS

MARCH 4, 2021

U.S. Capitol Police initially rejected help from the Department of Homeland Security during the assault on the Capitol on January 6, according to former acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf.

Wolf says that he offered to send DHS law enforcement backup just after 2 p.m. that day, after a violent mob of Trump supporters had begun to infiltrate the Capitol. That initial offer was rebuffed by Capitol Police, Wolf told CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett.

"Capitol Police turned us down, initially. And they said 'No, we've got it under control,'" Wolf said in an interview for "The Takeout" podcast this week. DHS eventually dispatched about 100 Secret Service personnel to help quell the insurrection. "I'm not sure that there was a lot of clarity that was coming out of Capitol Police at that time."

Listen to this episode on ART19

Wolf criticized the Capitol Police response to the attack, suggesting that leadership should have been more prepared, given the large number of protesters expected in Washington on January 6.

"You're gonna have 35,000 people show up in D.C., you have to plan for the worst. That is your job as law enforcement and a first responder is you plan for the worst. We did that at DHS," Wolf told Garrett. "I think the Capitol Police are having to explain why they did not plan for the very worst."

Wolf says he never saw the intelligence assessment issued by the Norfolk, Virginia, FBI field office on the eve of the attack — it notified law enforcement of an anonymous social media thread threatening war at the U.S. Capitol. The assessment was forwarded by email to a lieutenant in the House's protective and intelligence operations but went no further up the chain of command. Still, Wolf doesn't believe that the events of January 6 were an "intelligence failure" because law enforcement agencies were aware of the potential threat.

"I think what is most critical that most folks are taking a look at is, why didn't we have more intelligence saying that they were going to storm the Capitol, that they were going to try to break through the barriers. You always want that type of granular intelligence for any type of law enforcement operation. We'd love to have that, and if it was out there to that level of degree and clarity and credibility, and that wasn't shared, I would say 'yes, that is a failure.' That's not what occurred here," Wolf said. "There was a lot of intelligence there."

"It was a lack of execution of a plan, if one was in place," he said.

Congress has held hearings on the security and planning failures that precipitated the insurrection, which resulted in the deaths of five people. Wolf told Garrett he's willing to testify before Congress, but hasn't yet been asked to do so. His main concern is that DHS determine "how do we provide information to our state and local partners."

"I think the general information that was being shared was just a general heightened threat environment and that 'you need to scale up your protective measures accordingly.' And we certainly did that at DHS, and I think others will have to question and answer why they didn't do that as well," Wolf said.

DHS "immediately established a crisis action team to monitor the situation" as the events of January 6 unfolded," Melissa Smislova, the acting undersecretary in the Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) at DHS, told lawmakers this week.

But Capitol Police also faced other hurdles in securing the Capitol. Major General William Walker, the commanding general of the D.C. National Guard, testified before Congress Wednesday that it took Pentagon leaders more than three hours to approve a request for National Guard troops to assist Capitol Police officers overwhelmed by the violent mob. "The word that I kept hearing was the 'optics' of it," Walker said. "There was some concern that it could inflame the protesters."

Wolf says he has no insight into the delay in deploying troops; he told Garrett he wasn't involved in those discussions.

Wolf also weighed in on the 2020 election, calling it "free and fair," which former President Trump has still refused to acknowledge. However, he acknowledged that DHS does not address voter fraud. When asked if there were any issues with the election from the perspective of the DHS, Wolf said that "from a cyber and foreign influence standpoint, we saw very little to almost none."

Wolf also criticized the executive orders and actions the Biden administration had taken with regard to immigration, including rolling back some Trump administration policies.

"A lot of these actions are actually very, very dangerous. Because what they are doing, taken together, is they are fueling the crisis that we see on the border today," Wolf said. "They're incentivizing vulnerable populations to continue to come to that border."

For more of Major's conversation with Wolf, download "The Takeout" podcast

just security timeline https://www.justsecurity.org/74138/incitement-timeline-year-of-trumps-actions-leading-to-the-attack-on-the-capitol/

Later reports suggest that DHS officials were directed to make sympathetic statements toward Rittenhouse. It is unclear whether these directions originated at the White House or within the DHS press office, NBC reports.

September 8, 2020: Brian Murphy, a whistleblower in the Department of Homeland Security submits a complaint that claims that the two most senior DHS officials tried to suppress threat assessments of white supremacy because it would reflect poorly on President Trump.

The complaint alleges that acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf and Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli wanted Murphy to “ specifically modify the section on White Supremacy in a manner that made the threat appear less severe, as well as include information on the prominence of violent ‘left-wing’ groups.” The complaint also alleges that DHS leadership asked Murphy to “modify intelligence assessments to ensure they matched up with the public comments by President Trump on the subject of ANTIFA and ‘anarchist’ groups.”

The complaint garners wide media attention.

haas foia

John Eastman (including but not limited to, from the email address

jeastman@claremont.org or jeastman@chapman.edu), or anyone

communicating on behalf of Constitutional Counsel Group (@ccg1776.com)

Anyone communicating on behalf of theAmerica First Policy Institute,

including Brooke Rollins, Chad Wolf, or anyone communicating from an

email address ending in @americafirstpolicy.com

Anyone communicating on behalf of America First Legal, including Stephen

Miller, Gene Hamilton, Russ Vought, or anyone communicating from an

email address ending in @aflegal.org

https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/dhs-report-manipulated-trump-ally/

collusion rept buried? says IG

During 2020’s presidential race, national security experts were warning that the Kremlin and its allies would try to interfere in that election just as they had interfered in the 2016 election — and a report was released by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis. The DHS Inspector General’s Office, in 2022, has been investigating that report; the results of the recent DHS IG probe were released on Tuesday, May 3, andaccording to DHS IG Joseph V. Cuffari, the 2020 report was improperly manipulated.

Reporters Courtney Bublé and Patrick Tucker, in Defense One, explain, “A top Trump Administration official delayed and altered an intelligence product about the upcoming 2020 presidential election, leading to the perception that it was changed to help Donald Trump’s reelection bid, according to a federal watchdog.”

Bublé and Tucker note that the newly released DHS IG report is titled “DHS Actions Related to an I&A Intelligence Product Deviated from Standard Procedures” and “reflects reporting by ABC News from back in September 2020.”

On September 2, 2020, ABC News reported that in early July 2020,DHS had “withheld publication of an intelligence bulletin warning law enforcement agencies of a Russian scheme to promote ‘allegations about the poor mental health’ of former Vice President Joe Biden.”

In 2020, the false and ageist claim that Biden was mentally impaired was pushed by Kremlin-operated media in Russia as well as by their useful idiots in far-right MAGA media in the United States.

In its newly released report, the DHS IG’s Office explains, “The acting secretary participated in the review process multiple times despite lacking any formal role in reviewing the product, resulting in the delay of its dissemination on at least one occasion. The delays and deviation from (the Office of Intelligence and Analysis) standard process and requirements put (the office) at risk of creating a perception of politicization.”

Bublé and Tucker note that in April 2020, DHS’ Cyber Million Center started drafting a report titled “Russia Likely to Denigrate Health of U.S. Candidates to Influence 2020 Electoral Dynamics.”

“Aiming to inform state and local governments,” Bublé and Tucker explain, “the analysts followed the Office of Intelligence and Analysis’ drafting and editing policies, the IG found. But when DHS leaders reviewed the report at a July 8, 2020 meeting, Acting Secretary Chad Wolf — who is referred to by his title but not explicitly named in the IG document — determined that DHS should hold the report because it would embarrass President Trump, according to a whistleblower complaint noted in the IG report.”

Bublé and Tucker add, “The report was delayed for months. A Cyber Mission Center official added a ‘tone box’ — a new section of text — that said China and Iran were trying to derail Trump’s reelection. When DHS investigators asked why the material outside of the original scope of the report was added, the official didn’t have a good answer.”

https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/suspected-russian-hackers-gained-access-to-top-dhs-officials-e-mail-report/

an 1120

federal judge rules Trump's DHS secretary was illegally appointed — so his anti-immigrant moves are invalid

upping fees for immig struck down by ct in part b/c gig not official

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/adam-schiff-accuses-trump-administration-of-obstruction-in-probe-of-dhs-whistleblower/

920 salon

homeland Security gave $6M in contracts to firm where acting secretary's wife is executive: report

:{:{ALEX HENDERSON - ALTERNET:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}::(style="box-sizing:border-box;text-transform:uppercase"):}:

an 920

republicans are finally bothering to hold a confirmation hearing for unlawfully appointed Chad Wolf

Gabe Ortiz / Daily Kos September 23, 2020

Acting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Sec. Chad Wolf defied a subpoena ordering him to appear before the House Homeland Security Committee last week. A photograph by Getty from that hearing showed a…

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/department-of-homeland-security-acting-secretary-chad-wolf-speaks-at-an-event-at-dhs-headquarters-in-washington-wednesday-sept-9-2020-ap-photo-susan-walsh-dhs-whistleblower-accuses-chad-wolf-of/

kos

For weeks, Donald Trump ordered a rag-tag mix of border patrol, U. S. marshals, and other elements of federal enforcement—none of them trained to deal with the public—into the streets of Portland, Oregon, where they upped the level of violence, grabbed people off the street without charges, and savagelybeat a group of local moms trying to get them to halt their violence. After some weeks, Trump finally decided he’d done enough to generate footage for his doom-themed campaign commercials (with a few supplements) and took his beat-down squad off the streets.

Understandably, Congress would like to talk to the people who thought that dragging people into unmarked vans, shooting journalists in the face, defying local officials, and filling the streets with banned chemical weapons was a great idea. They’ve asked officials form the Department of Homeland Security to provide witnesses about the incident in Portland, and about ongoing efforts to create a make-believe threat of “antifa terrorists” to justify their actions, while ignoring their own analysisshowing the genuine threat posed by white supremacist groups.

At the same time, Congress is dealing with a whistleblower complaintfrom a former DHS official who says that Wolf ordered him to stop trying to both stop prevent Russian interference, and instead create a false narrative about China and Iran. That same officials says that the white supremacist threat was deliberately played down as DHS suppressed information that might be “embarrassing” to Trump. But the DHS has decided that it doesn’t want to talk about any of this. Instead, it’s refusing to provide witnesses to the House intelligence Committee, setting off yet another conflict between a Congress that needs to know the truth, and a White House that needs to keep the truth hidden.

Failing to cooperate with Congress in any way has become the hallmark of the Donald Trump White House. Statements that re supposed to be regularly provided to the House, are not being sent. Standard briefings are being halted. And from the moment he sat down, Trump has been bypassing Congress entirely with an unprecedented number of executive orders and the use of a national emergency declarationto get around the congressional budget.

as The Washington Post reports, DHS has sent a response to Congress saying that they simply have too many questions. They have “unreasonably broadened their scope” after getting the whistleblower complaint from former DHS official Brian Murphy who says he was twice told to stop reporting about the threat of Russian interference in the election—in spite of compelling evidence that Russia is absolutely interfering in the election. Murphy also reports that he was told to remove statements about white supremacists “to bring them in line with President Trump’s public comments.” Among his claims, Murphy says that a July analysis that showed Russia interfering in a way designed to help Trump was not released because “it was embarrassing to Trump.”

DHS officials have denied Murphy’s charges and claimed they are “looking forward” to an investigation. Except for the part where they cooperate with that investigation.

But DHS has tried to explain to Congress that everything is just fine. Rather than having anyone answer questions, assistant secretary Beth Spivey provided committee chair Adam Schiff with an email in which whistleblower Murphy says that “The acting secretary has never given me any direction on what to do Regarding [sic] threats,” only … it’s not a whole email. It’s just a that text from a larger statement … text that looks suspiciously as if even that tiny scrap has been edited.

Schiff has said the Intelligence Committee will consider “compulsory process” to force witnesses to appear, but so far the House has been unwilling to move forward with steps that would prevent the White House from simply turning any effort to pull in witnesses into a months-long court battle.

https://theintercept.com/2020/09/12/homeland-security-whistleblower-corruption/

If CHAD WOLF, the man currently running the largest law enforcement agency in the country, had any idea of what was coming, he didn’t show it. On Wednesday, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security stood before his colleagues and delivered the 2020 “State of the Homeland Address,” detailing the many ways in which his department was living up to its post-9/11 mission and supporting President Donald Trump’s agenda. Everyone on the DHS livestream was socially distanced and wearing masks — everyone, that is, but Ken Cuccinelli, the department’s “senior official performing the duties of the deputy secretary.”

Last month, the Government Accountability Office issued a report concluding that both Wolf and Cuccinelli are illegally occupying their positions atop DHS. But what the two men lack in legal authorization to work, they make up for in fealty to the president. Teeing up the crowd for Wolf’s remarks this week, Cuccinelli spoke of threats to “our cherished homeland” and said that “after decades of putting global interests ahead of the safety and the prosperity of our citizens, this administration has boldly put America first.”

Wolf, a former Transportation Security Administration lobbyist, struck a similar tone in his prepared remarks, drawing applause when he mentioned Homeland Security’s role in policing protests in Portland, Oregon, and his department’s ongoing efforts to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. The event had just barely concluded when the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence published a 24-page whistleblower complaint accusing Wolf, Cuccinelli, and other current and former DHS leaders, including former Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who was also present at Wednesday’s address, of illegally manipulating and politicizing intelligence to bolster the president’s talking points and policy objectives in numerous ways across multiple years.

The man behind the complaint was Brian Murphy, a war on terror veteran who ran Homeland Security intelligence operations and served as a principle adviser to the secretary of DHS and the director of national security. Though complicated by the fact that Murphy himself had previously been accused of overseeing disturbing surveillance practices earlier this year, the whistleblower complaint marked the latest revelation in a long line of stories suggesting that DHS has become the armed extension of a Trumpian political project.

Murphy’s allegations ranged from inflating the number of known or suspected terrorists crossing the border, to the suppression of intelligence on right-wing terrorists, to the stifling of reports on Russian interference in the coming election. Murphy claimed that his efforts to push back on the senior DHS officials were met with retaliation and a demotion. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the chair of the intelligence committee, described his complaint as “grave and disturbing,” adding in a statement, “We will get to the bottom of this, expose any and all misconduct or corruption to the American people, and put a stop to the politicization of intelligence."

john Sandweg, a former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the politicization of Homeland Security operations under the Trump administration has been “tremendous,” and that it first began in the border and immigration realms and steadily expanded to include militarized Border Patrol BORTAC units deployed to arrest protesters in a major American city against the wishes of local officials.

“It’s at the point now where it’s really undermining the operational capability of DHS to work with the state and local governments,” Sandweg told The Intercept. “There’s going to be repercussions.”

In his complaint, Murphy claimed that in a series of meetings, Wolf and Cuccinelli personally intervened in an effort to doctor information related to the recent protests surrounding the killing of George Floyd, instructing him to “modify intelligence assessments to ensure they matched up with the public comments by President Trump on the subject of ANTIFA and ‘anarchist’ groups.” Murphy also claimed that the men improperly inserted themselves in the creation of a “Homeland Treat Assessment” report earlier this year, blocking circulation of the document out of concerns over how it “would reflect upon President Trump.”

“Two sections were specifically labeled as concerns: White Supremacy and Russian influence in the United States,” Murphy’s complaint said. The complaint went on to describe a series of meetings in May and June, as protests against police brutality spread to every state in the country, in which “Mr. Cuccinelli stated that Mr. Murphy needed to specifically modify the section on White Supremacy in a manner that made the threat appear less severe, as well as include information on the prominence of violent ‘left-wing’ groups.”

Murphy’s allegations come two months after an investigation by The Intercept that analyzed a trove of hacked law enforcement documents that were posted online under the title “BlueLeaks.” The materials included documents produced at the local, state, and federal level, including Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, otherwise known as I&A, where Murphy worked. The Intercept’s analysis focused on hundreds of documents produced during the recent protests that referenced “antifa,” a loose movement of antifascist political activists, and revealed glaring disparities between law enforcement’s depiction of groups on the right and the left.

In the case of antifa, the documents revealed that law enforcement intelligence was often vague, mixed up in online conspiracy theories or untethered to evidence of suspected criminal activity. On the far right, on the other hand, the documents showed law enforcement agencies across the country sharing detailed and specific information on the mobilization of armed groups looking to use the unrest as cover to attack law enforcement and protesters and set off a civil war. In July, the sergeant of an elite Air Force security unit with ties to the so-called boogaloo movement was arrested on suspicion of assassinating a federal court security officer and killing a California sheriff’s deputy, strongly suggesting that the online threats circulating at the time went beyond mere posturing.

:{:{Read Our Complete Coverage:(style="box-sizing:border-box;font-weight:normal;display:block;letter-spacing:0px;margin-bottom:5px;text-transform:capitalize"):}::{BlueLeaks:(style="box-sizing:border-box;display:block"):}::(style="box-sizing:border-box;width:420px;float:left;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;max-width:420px"):}:

During the protests, I&A shared intelligence that was both dubious and disturbing. On June 2, for example, the office circulated a tweet to law enforcement agencies across the country reporting that antifa was stashing bricks to “fuel protests.” As Mainer magazine later reported, the original source of the information was a pro-Trump biker who called himself “the wolfman” and previously spread conspiracy theories online.

At the same time, I&A circulated intelligence in late May detailing conversations inside an encrypted white supremacist Telegram channel, in which thousands of followers were encouraged to use guns, Molotov cocktails, and chainsaws to attack police and “spread racial hatred.” The following day, I&A published an intelligence note again describing conversations in another white supremacist Telegram channel, in which followers were encouraged to “engage in violence and start the ‘boogaloo’ — a term used by some violent extremists to refer to the start of a second Civil War — by shooting in a crowd.”

At the time, Trump, along with Wolf, Cuccinelli, and U.S. Attorney General William Barr were agitating for a crackdown on antifa, with Trump calling the movement a terrorist organization and Barr announcing that Joint Terrorism Task Forces across the country would be called to root out leftist “agitators.”

The Justice Department has launched hundreds of domestic terrorism investigations in the weeks since, while a Trump Super Pac has used the antifa crackdown to raise money for the president’s reelection efforts.

On June 1, Trump boosted a tweet from Brian Kilmeade, in which the “Fox and Friends” co-host said he saw no evidence of white supremacists mobilizing in response to the protests. “TRUE!” Trump tweeted. Later in the day, Trump delivered an address in the Rose Garden threatening to use the military in response to the “professional anarchists” and antifa elements in the streets. He made no mention of groups on the far right. The next morning, DHS circulated a report acknowledging “media reports” indicating “that neo-Nazi, and other paramilitary far-right groups, are calling for terror attacks during the ongoing unrest throughout the United States.” According to a distribution list at the bottom of the report, the document was shared with the White House Situation Room, DHS headquarters, federal interagency operations centers, and state and local partners.

:{

Despite the intelligence circulating in his own office regarding threats from the far right, Cuccinelli continued to keep the focus on the left.

}:

Despite the intelligence circulating in his own office regarding threats from the far right, Cuccinelli continued to keep the focus on the left, tweeting, “Their silence is deafening. Cities across America burn at the hands of antifa and anarchists while many political leaders are refusing to call it what it is: domestic terrorism.”

Murphy and his office drew national attention in late July, when news broke that I&A had disseminated three Open Source Intelligence Reports summarizing the tweets of a New York Times reporter and the editor of a prominent Washington, D.C. national security blog; both had published unclassified DHS documents related to the Portland protests. At the time, Wolf said he had ordered a stop to the intelligence gathering and launched an investigation into the matter. Murphy was singled out as the official driving the intelligence collection, with sources telling the Washington Post that the former FBI agent had “earned a reputation at DHS for aggressively trying to expand the operations of the intelligence office.”

In his complaint, Murphy said the media reports concerning the collection of information on journalists were “significantly flawed and, in many instances, contained completely erroneous assertions,” and that “I&A never knowingly or deliberately collected information on journalists, at least as far as Mr. Murphy is aware or ever authorized.”

The expansive network of law enforcement fusion centers where I&A directs much of its work product have been the subject of years of criticism for exhibiting a “persistent pattern of violating Americans’ privacy and civil liberties, producing unreliable and ineffective information, and resisting financial and other types of standard public accountability.” As The Intercept reported in late July, I&A under Trump has repeatedly directed its intelligence-gathering efforts at immigration advocates on the border. DHS officials in San Diego oversaw a sweeping, binational intelligence-gathering operation targeting lawyers, journalists, and asylum advocates associated with the migrant caravans that became a key political talking point for the Trump administration during the 2018 midterm elections.

Federal Agents at Protests Renew Calls to Dismantle Homeland Security

It is unclear what role, if any, Murphy played in those events, though his complaint notes that during his March 2018 to July 2020 tenure, he was “responsible for all intelligence activities in DHS.” He has been called to testify before Congress later this month, where those questions may come up.

Throughout the past three and half years, the leadership of DHS has been steadily hollowed out, resulting in a department increasingly run by allies of Trump’s anti-immigration adviser, Stephen Miller. To many Homeland Security veterans, the ascent of Wolf and Cuccinelli is the disturbing encapsulation of that trend — one former DHS official, speaking to The Intercept on background, described Wolf as a “back bencher” and “literally a joke.”

On Thursday, one day after Murphy’s complaint made news across the country, the White House sent a letter to the Senate formally nominating Wolf to head DHS. Twenty-four hours later, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, subpoenaed Wolf to testifybefore his committee, noting in a statement that the acting secretary had been dodging the lawmakers’ questions since protests picked up in June.

“This administration has so completely fueled the negative stereotype of the agency, that is going to have real world implications for the agency for years to come, not just in dealing with Congress,” Sandweg said. “I think they’ve done incalculable damage.”

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/a-critic-of-the-russian-government-sought-asylum-in-the-us-and-was-treated-shamefully-under-trump/

Gregory Duralev has been seeking asylum in the United States since 2016 after exposing corruption in Russia’s economy. It’s no exaggeration to say that this could be a matter of life or death, when critics of the Russian government continue to die “mysteriously.” But Politico’s Natasha Bertrand reports Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has sought to deport Duralev to exactly that—and even as he’s been allowed to legally remain in the U.S. while his asylum claim plays out.

“Duralev has no criminal record in the U.S. or Russia,” Bertrand reported. “Nor do Russia and the United States have a formal extradition treaty. But he was arrested, deemed a flight risk and denied bond, he says, because of a Red Notice issued by Russia and shared with POLITICO. Experts who have reviewed the document say it was so incomplete and riddled with inaccuracies that it was nearly incomprehensible.”

The *Atlantic* in 2018 described Interpol-issued Red Notices as “the closest instrument to an international arrest warrant in use today,” though it “cannot compel any member country to arrest an individual who is the subject of a Red Notice, according to its guidelines.” Per the Justice Department, the Atlantic said, “the United States does not consider a Red Notice alone to be a sufficient basis for the arrest of a subject because it does not meet the requirements for arrest under the 4th Amendment to the Constitution.”

But during the Trump administration, Kremlin-demanded Red Notices “are being met with increasing deference by the Department of Homeland Security,” the Atlantic continued.

Duralev could now be its next victim. He was detained by ICE when he was arriving for a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) appointment that he assumed was part of his asylum process. It wasn’t. ICE under the Trump administration has in fact detained many other immigrants in this same “bait and switch” deceit, with a Maryland judge earlier this year issuing an injunction blocking mass deportation agents from sweeping up immigrants who were detained when they arrived for what they also assumed were immigration interviews.

Duralev was detained for 18 months, at one point “placed in protective custody and told to know his ‘place’” after complaining about his treatment, Politico continued. He tried asking both the immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals to let him fight his case in freedom, but that was denied due to the faulty Red Notice. “The fact that immigration judges are relying on Russian Red Notices to penalize Russians who have fallen out with the state makes no legal sense,” Bill Browder, another activist previously targeted by the Kremlin, told Politico. “It shouldn’t happen. It’s illegal and it’s unjust.”

But that’s ICE, and the Trump administration. Federal immigration officials have also resumed wide-scale sweepsin the middle of a pandemic, detaining more than 2,000 people in July and August to keep filling up inhumane and dangerous detention facilities that advocates have said should instead be emptied due to the novel coronavirus. ICE has in fact actively made the crisis in these facilities worse, by shifting detained people from facility to facility instead of just releasing them.

Politico reports that while Duralev was finally released in February, he could still face deportation. “In the meantime, from his home in California, Duralev is now pursuing a civil lawsuit against DHS for ‘fabricating charges’ against him—accusing him of illegal visa overstay, despite USCIS allowing him to remain in the U.S. pending an asylum decision. He has also sent a complaint to the DHS inspector general, which has yet to be answered.” Duralev told Politico that “DHS has acted no better than the Russian authorities.”

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/its-about-intimidation-trump-allies-suggest-using-federal-racketeering-laws-to-bully-anti-racism-activists/

no lnx

President Donald Trump and his supporters have been consistently disingenuous and misleading in their attacks on protesters, describing antifa as “terrorists” and glossing over the fact that thousands of Black Lives Matter activists all over the United States have been totally peaceful.Amplifying Trump’s message, Chad Wolf — acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security — has suggested possibly using anti-racketeering laws to go after left-wing protesters. And reporter Kelly Weill examines that suggestion from a legal/civil rights standpoint in a Daily Beast article published on September 3.

“Can the United States government really use the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, mostly known as a weapon the feds use to target mob bosses, to successfully prosecute protesters, as Wolf implied?,” Weill writes. “It wouldn’t be easy, legal experts say. But the chatter signals a potent new effort — bolstered by extra-deranged conspiracy theories — to crack down on protesters, and may already be having its desired effect: freaking people out.”

When Wolf was interviewed by Fox News’Tucker Carlson on Monday night, August 31, the far-right Carlson asked him, “Why haven’t we seen the leaders of antifa and BLM arrested and charged with conspiracy under, say, RICO, like the heads of mafia families were?” — to which the acting DHS secretary responded, “Well, this is something that I have talked to (Attorney General William Barr) personally about. I know that they are working on it.” And Wolf told Carlson that the U.S. Department of Justice was investigating “the heads of those organizations.”

Weill notes that in July, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas wrote a letter to Barr and the FBI calling for an investigation of antifa “under the RICO Act.” But attorney Ken White, a former federal prosecutor, is dismissive of politicians who throw the word “RICO” around casually.

White told the Daily Beast that the RICO Act “was useful, and still is sometimes, at taking down genuine organized crime. The problem is that (RICO) sounds badass so people want to use it on everything. People basically use it like an angry emoji…. I think 98% of the time it’s invoked, it’s more emotional or performative than it is substantive.”

Chip Gibbons, policy director of Defending Rights And Dissent, stressed that antifa is not an actual organization. Gibbons told the Beast, “When (Wolf) says they’re looking at the leaders of Black Lives Matter for RICO charges, who do they mean? Do they mean the board of trustees on the actual 501(c)(3) (nonprofit) organization? Do they mean the three individuals who are credited with coming up with the hashtag? These are pretty decentralized movements…. How are we going to subpoena the hotel records of antifa? It’s a nonsensical proposition, like if I said I’m going to subpoena the hotel records of feminism.”

However, Faiza Patel, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, argued that even if RICO charges didn’t hold up in the courts, they could still have a chilling effect on protesters. Patel told the Beast, “One of the things this administration has tried to do is label protesters as part of some criminal organization, because once you have the idea of an organization, then that makes it a lot easier to go after people who are related. You might not necessarily have to get the individual person who might have committed a crime; you can actually treat the entire group as being dangerous or criminal. And that gives you a lot more leverage in going after its members.”

Gibbons said of threats to use the RICO Act against demonstrators, “It’s about intimidation. If you’re a normal person and you’re disgusted by police racism but you think, ‘If I go out and protest, is the FBI going to open a file on me?,’ you might think twice about doing so.”

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/dhs-withheld-publication-of-intel-bulletin-showing-russian-plot-to-bidens-mental-health-report

according to ABC News, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security withheld publication, in early July, of an intelligence bulletin describing a Russian scheme to push “allegations about” Biden’s “poor mental health.”

ABC News has obtained a copy of the bulletin, titled “Russia Likely to Denigrate Health of U.S. Candidates to Influence 2020 Election.” And ABC reporters Josh Margolin, Lucien Bruggeman, Will Steakin and Jonathan Karl note that the document was submitted to the DHS’ office of legislative and public affairs for review on July 7.

“The analysis was not meant for public consumption,” according to the reporters. “But it was set to be distributed to federal, state and local law enforcement partners two days later, on July 9, the e-mails show.”

However, an e-mail obtained by ABC News shows that DHS Chief of Staff John Gountanis intervened, asking DHS employees to “please hold on sending this one out until you have a chance to speak to” Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf. And almost two months later, according to ABC News, the bulletin has yet to be circulated.

the bulletin stated that DHS analysts believed, with “high confidence,” that “Russian malign influence actors are likely to continue denigrating presidential candidates through allegations of poor mental or physical health to influence the outcome of the 2020 election.”

Right-wing Republican Elizabeth Neumann, who formerly served as a DHS assistant secretary under the Trump Administration but recently voiced her support for Biden in a Republican Voters Against Trump video, told ABC News, “High confidence means what it sounds like: that they are highly confident that their assessment is accurate. And they don’t use that language very often.”

John Cohen, a former undersecretary of intelligence at DHS under President Barack Obama, expressed concerns that the Trump Administration is blocking intelligence information for political purposes.

Cohen told ABC News, “We are hearing concerns being raised publicly that, in this administration, intelligence community reporting is being modified or blocked for political reasons — or to not anger the president. By blocking information from being released that describes threats facing the nation, it undermines the ability of the public and state and local authorities to work with the federal government to counteract the threat.”

an 820

Trump administration’s top officials at the Department of Homeland Security—Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli—were illegally appointed to their positions, the Government Accountability Office said Friday.

The decision from the internal government watchdog states that the appointments were not in compliance with the Federal Vacancies Reform Act or Homeland Security Act.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/this-has-to-stop-oregon-senators-unveil-amendment-to-bar-trump-from-sending-secret-police-into-us-cities/

https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/trumps-acting-homeland-security-secretary-just-made-a-damning-admission-on-fox-news

Appearing on Fox News Tuesday night, acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf — who has not been confirmed to his position by the Senate — made a damning admission about his department’s conduct in Portland.

Federal officials in Portland have prompted a fierce backlash for aggressive and legally dubious tactics against protesters in the city. Local officials have demanded that the federal officials, some of them using unmarked vehicles and wearing camouflage without identifying insignia, leave and let police handle law enforcement. But President Donald Trump and Wolf seem intent on using the Homeland Security forces to intimidate, rough up, and apprehend protesters to make the federal government appear tough.

And while he was speaking to Fox Host Martha MacCallum on Tuesday, Wolf seemed to confirm what many had accused his agency of doing: making unlawful arrests.

“The department, because we don’t have that local support, that local law enforcement support, are having to go out and proactively arrest individuals,” Wolf said. “And we need to do that because we need to hold them accountable. This idea that they can attack federal property and law enforcement officers and go to the other side of the street and say ‘you can’t touch me’ is ridiculous.”

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Watch the clip below: [twt]

By saying that his officers are proactively arresting people, Wolf suggests that they’re making arrests before people have committed crimes. This, of course, would be an unlawful arrest — you can’t arrest someone just because you think they might commit a crime.

Some could argue this is an unfair reading of Wolf’s remarks because his remarks referred to people who committed crimes, such as assaulting federal officers. The problem is that there have been multiple incidents of federal officials sweeping people off the streets despite no clear evidence or reason to believe they were involved in a crime. One person, Mark Pettibone, was reportedly detained by agents and eventually released without ever being charged with a crime.

So the seemingly “unfair” reading of Wolf’s remarks actually seems to accurately reflect what is happening on the ground in Portland.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/heres-why-the-white-house-is-sending-stormtroopers-into-portland/

In one of the most alarming developments of Trump’s presidency, dozens of federal agents in full camouflage seized protesters and threw them into unmarked cars, taking them to locations unknown without specifying a reason for arrest. It appears that at least some of the agents involved belonged to the US Customs and Border Protection (colloquially known as Border Patrol), an organization that obviously has no business whatsoever conducted counterinsurgency tactics against peaceful American protesters in Portland, Oregon. Neither the mayor of Portland nor the governor of Oregon wanted them there; in fact, they specifically requested that they leave. And now a U.S. Attorney for the State of Oregon is calling for an investigation into the arrests, even as the Acting head of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, is vowing to ramp up these actions both in Portland and reportedly elsewhere.

Needless to say, this is a chilling step toward police state authoritarian rule in the United States, one that was presaged by Attorney General Barr’s approval of an pre-curfew assault on protesters instigated in Lafayette Square to clear the way for a presidential campaign photo op. Few took it seriously when leftist organizers were warning that the border patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were being culturally and structurally converted into stormtroopers for the Trump regime, equally ready to be deployed against politically inconvenient American citizens as against undocumented immigrants seeking a better life. Those warnings should be heeded now.

We should not allow ourselves to become numb to this. It is helpful psychologically–even if tired and stale as a rhetorical device–to remind ourselves what the reactions would be if a Democrat were acting similarly. Imagine if President Obama had sent in in military-garbed federal stormtroopers to round up Tea Party protesters into unmarked cars, over the top of the objections of local governors and mayors. It’s unthinkable. It’s the sort of thing that drove bizarre right-wing conspiracy theories like Jade Helm, but that if any shred of them were true would instantly have embroiled the country in a civil war.

So why is Trump doing it?

many theories abound—none of them entirely convincing on their own, but all of them deeply disturbing. One explanation is that it’s a trial run for future police state actions, partly to push the window of the possible, partly to desensitize the public to further abuses, and partly to see precisely what they can get away with and what Americans will tolerate.

This is no doubt true to a certain extent, but the challenge is that it also carries enormous downside risk. If Trump doesn’t win re-election he has less than six months left in his presidency–hardly time enough for a deeply unpopular and divisive president to engineer a police state coup. And just as with the outrage in Lafayette Square, the mere action itself will likely make Trump even more unpopular with the few undecided voters who remain.

Another convergent explanation is that making a show of supposed toughness in conducting military counterinsurgency in Democratic-controlled cities that want no part of it will thrill Trump’s base. This is reasonable to assume, since Trump’s base takes no greater joy than in seeing authoritarian cruelty exercised against their political enemies. And it’s likely true, since Trump is obsessed with his base to the exclusion of all else beyond his own personal profit. But the problem is that almost everyone in the Trump campaign’s immediate orbit beyond the president himself knows that Trump must expand beyond his shrinking base to have any chance of winning re-election. The more Trump gives aging bigots dopamine hits, the more the rest of the country falls away from him. Camouflaged stormtroopers used against American citizens will almost certainly lose him more votes than he gains.

But there is a third explanation, simultaneously dumber and yet more convincing: the Fox News effect. Trump spends endless hours watching garbage cable television, specifically One America News (OAN) and Fox News. Judging from Trump’s tweets, his entire political universe revolves around Fox News–and, more recently, the even more bizarrely propagandistic OAN when even Fox News fails to adequately toe the line.

Ever since the beginning of the protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd, Fox News has been portraying liberal American cities as hellscapes of violence in which the police and the Trump Administration played the role of hero against rampaging hordes. Most Americans, of course, didn’t see it that way. But if you live entirely in the Fox News bubble, then this narrative is as self-evident a truth as the rising of the sun in the east. Most recently, Fox News has been describing Portland in particular, in the words of former Media Matters for America contributor Oliver Willis, as if it were Baghdad circa 2003. This is not the case, of course. Crime rates in Portland have been on a steady decline for decades, with the last month being no significant exception. In fact, the worst Acting HHS Secretary Wolf could point to was literally a few instances of graffiti. No kidding.

But if Fox News were the sum of your reality, you would believe that emergency action needed to be taken before the residents started to erect a Thunderdome and the services of Snake Plisskenwould be required. You would send in the troops despite the potential cost out of a belief that relieved Americans would be desperately grateful for your embrace of “law and order” (even if it were heavy on the “order” and light on the “law.”) You would do whatever it took to bring the situation to heel, and figure the public approval would follow from the new Pax Trumpiana. After all, Fox News declared it must be so.

This last scenario is admittedly ridiculous. But it’s also likely closest to the truth. While figures like Stephen Miller no doubt have a laser focus on instituting an authoritarian apartheid regime to save white supremacist Republican rule the demographic tsunami preparing to overwhelm them, they are not the president.Donald Trump is. Trump is a man of impulse, not of plans. His head is not set on the next 20 years of power, but on tomorrow’s cable news ratings. The constructed reality of Fox News is his reality. The rest of the authoritarian project follows from there.

And that more than anything else likely explains why the president is precipitating a constitutional crisis by sending stormtroopers into Portland.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/dhs-under-boss-were-taking-this-national July 18,

When asked about calls for an investigation into DHS police tactics in Portland, Oregon, Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli tells NPR not only are they not going to stop but they want to take the tactics nationwide.

Well, we are – we welcome – the more investigations, the better. With as much lawbreaking is going on, we’re seeking to prosecute as many people as are breaking the law as it relates to federal jurisdiction. That’s not always happening with respect to local jurisdiction and local offenses. But, you know, this is a posture we intend to continue not just in Portland but in any of the facilities that we’re responsible for around the country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secretary_of_Homeland_Security

United States Secretary of Homeland Security is the head of the United States Department of Homeland Security, the body concerned with protecting the United States and the safety of U.S. citizens. The secretary is a member of the president's Cabinet. The position was created by the Homeland Security Act following the attacks of September 11, 2001. The new department consisted primarily of components transferred from other cabinet departments because of their role in homeland security, such as the Coast Guard, the Federal Protective Service, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (which includes the Border Patrol), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (which includes Homeland Security Investigations), the Secret Service, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It does not include either the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Central Intelligence Agency.^[2]

The current acting secretary of Homeland Security is Chad Wolf, who began in that role on November 13, 2019.^[3]

^---^

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/dhs-under-boss-were-taking-this-national July 18,

his twit 4 pix of lots of grafitti, no ppl except a few cops

https://twitter.com/DHS_Wolf/status/1284095535067136002?s=20

Acting Secretary Chad Wolf

@DHS_Wolf Jul 17

Our men and women in uniform are patriots. We will never surrender to violent extremists on my watch.

see portland secret police, retaliation, threat to pull $

Oregon

State law passed in 1987: "Oregon Revised Statute 181.850, which prohibits law enforcement officers at the state, county or municipal level from enforcing federal immigration laws that target people based on their race or ethnic origin, when those individuals are not suspected of any criminal activities.[169][170]

Beaverton city council passed a resolution in January 2017 stating, in part, "The City of Beaverton is committed to living its values as a welcoming city for all individuals ...regardless of a person's ... immigration status" and that they would abide by Oregon state law of not enforcing federal immigration laws.[171]

Corvallis[172]

Portland[173]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_McAleenan

pal ICE

Wyden

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 streets of my hometown because they think it plays well with right-wing media.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chad_Wolf

stubble pix, swamp thing

Chad F. Wolf is the acting Secretary of Homeland Security and Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Strategy, Policy, and Plans. He previously served in several positions in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including as Chief of Staff of the Transportation Security Administration and Chief of Staff to DHS secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. He was an architect of the Trump administration's family separation policy.

From 2005 to 2016, he was a lobbyist, helping clients to secure contracts from the Transportation Security Administration, his previous employer.

1 Education and early career

2 Return to Department of Homeland Security

2.1 Acting Secretary

3 Personal life

4 References

5 External links

Education and early career

Wolf is originally from Plano, Texas.[2] He graduated from Plano East Senior High School and then attended Collin College on a tennis scholarship.[3] Wolf then earned a B.S. in U.S. history from Southern Methodist University.

He worked as a staffer for Republican Senators Phil Gramm, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and then Chuck Hagel, for whom he worked for two and a half years.[3][4][5] From 2002 to 2005, Wolf worked in the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), becoming Assistant Administrator for Transportation Security Policy in 2005.[4][5] From October 2005 to 2016, he was Vice President and Senior Director at Wexler & Walker,[4][5] a now-defunct lobbying firm.[6][7][2] He helped clients obtain contracts from the TSA, his previous employer.[8]

In 2013 he received a Master Certificate in Government Contract Management from Villanova University.[4]

Return to Department of Homeland Security

In March 2017 Wolf became Chief of Staff of the Transportation Security Administration.[2][4]

In 2018 he became Chief of Staff of DHS under Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.[4] While working for Nielsen, he was an early architect of the family separation policy.[6] He later testified to Congress that his function was to provide information to the Secretary and "not to determine whether it was the right or wrong policy,"[6] though he agreed with the decision to end the policy.[9] He also testified that he was not involved in the initial development of the policy by the Executive Office of the President and the Attorney General, though this statement was disputed based on internal documents.[10]

He then became Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Strategy, Plans, Analysis & Risk,[4] a Senior Executive Service position not subject to Senate confirmation.[11] He concurrently served as Acting Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Strategy, Policy, and Plans.[4] He was nominated in February 2019 to serve permanently in the Under Secretary role,[12] and his confirmation hearing was held that June,[6] but the nomination was delayed by Senator Jacky Rosen to protest poor conditions for children at DHS facilities.[13]

Acting Secretary

COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020

Wolf's appointment as Acting Secretary of Homeland Security came after the departure of Kevin McAleenan was announced on November 1, 2019.[14] The fact that he had previously lobbied for the National Association of Software and Services Companies, which was in favor of the H-1B visa program, led to criticism from groups favoring more restrictive immigration policies,[12][15] but the Trump administration defended his record[6] and privately asked Republican senators not to oppose his appointment.[16]

The administration waited for Wolf's confirmation as Under Secretary before appointing him to the Acting Secretary role,[17] to avoid appointing him as a principal officer from a non-Senate-confirmed position, which many scholars and former government officials have argued is unconstitutional.[14][18][19] DHS then had to move the Under Secretary position earlier in the line of succession, because the 210-day period in which an acting official may be named without a pending permanent nomination had expired, mandating that the duties of the Secretary must be performed by the department's seniormost confirmed official.[17][20]

Wolf was confirmed as Under Secretary on November 13, 2019 on a 54–41 vote,[21] and was sworn in as acting Secretary of Homeland Security the same day.[22] On November 15, House Democrats Bennie Thompson and Carolyn Maloney requested that the Comptroller General of the United States review the legality of Wolf's appointment on the basis that former Acting Secretary McAleenan did not have authority to change the department's line of succession, asserting that former Secretary Nielsen had not properly placed McAleenan first in the line of succession before resigning, and additionally that McAleenan's change came after the 210-day limit to his authority had expired.[9][23][24]

In February 2020, Wolf announced that the Trump administration was revoking New York residents' ability to participate in Global Entry and other Trusted Traveler programs, in response to the state's "sanctuary" immigration policies, which jeopardized the government’s ability to effectively vet travelers.[25][26][27] The move prompted the State of New York to sue the administration.[26]

In July 2020, Wolf sent federal agents dressed in camouflage and tactical gear to Portland, Oregon, where the agents used tear gas on protestors and pulled protestors into unmarked vehicles.[28] The agents did not have obvious marking or identification.[28] In the past, far-right militias had worn camouflage and tactical gear in clashes with other protestors in Portland, which sowed confusion.[28] Oregon Governor Kate Brown described the action as "abuse of power," and accused Wolf of "provoking confrontation for political purposes."[28] Portland mayor Ted Wheeler said it was "an attack on our democracy."[28] Wolf said the protestors were a "violent mob" and "violent anarchists."[28][29][30]

Personal life

Wolf is married and has two sons.[31]

References

^ "Chad Wolf to take over at DHS, but Senate needs to confirm him for different job first". Washington Post. Archived from the original on November 16, 2019. Retrieved November 7, 2019.

^ Jump up to:a b c "Chief of Staff". Transportation Security Administration. June 27, 2017. Archived from the original on June 27, 2017. Retrieved October 22, 2019.

^ Jump up to:a b "Life of service founded in lessons learned at Collin College" (PDF). Collin College Connection. 2015. pp. 3, 7. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 6, 2015. Retrieved October 21, 2019.

^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g h "Chad Wolf". U.S. Department of Homeland Security. May 7, 2019. Archived from the original on October 21, 2019. Retrieved October 21, 2019.

^ Jump up to:a b c "Chad Wolf Biography". Defense Daily. Archived from the original on October 21, 2019. Retrieved October 21, 2019.

^ Jump up to:a b c d e Ainsley, Julia; Tur, Katy; Strickler, Laura (October 22, 2019). "Trump admin considering Chad Wolf, an author of family separation policy, for DHS chief". NBC News. Archived from the original on October 22, 2019. Retrieved October 23,2019.

^ Meyer, Theodoric (November 30, 2018). "Wexler | Walker will close its doors". Politico. Retrieved October 22, 2019.

^ "Trump admin weighing drafter of family separation policy for DHS head". NBC News. Retrieved July 18, 2020.

^ Jump up to:a b Cramer, Harrison; Cohen, Zach C. (November 11, 2019). "Inside Trump's Gambit To Install Another Acting DHS Secretary". National Journal. Archivedfrom the original on November 15, 2019. Retrieved November 15, 2019.

^ Ainsley, Julia (November 7, 2019). "Watchdog: Trump pick made false claims about role in family separation". NBC News. Archived from the original on November 8, 2019. Retrieved November 8, 2019.

^ "United States Government Policy and Supporting Positions (Plum Book)". United States Government Publishing Office. 2016. p. 75. Archived from the original on July 26, 2018. Retrieved October 23, 2019.

^ Jump up to:a b Restuccia, Michelle; Hackman, Andrew (October 21, 2019). "White House Personnel Director Tells Trump Top DHS Secretary Picks Ineligible for Job". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on October 21, 2019. Retrieved October 21, 2019.

^ Alvarez, Priscilla (June 27, 2019). "Democratic senator blocks DHS nominations, citing border conditions". CNN. Archived from the original on October 22, 2019. Retrieved October 22, 2019.

^ Jump up to:a b Pettypiece, Shannon (November 1, 2019). "Chad Wolf could be a placeholder at Homeland Security". NBC News. Archived from the original on November 2, 2019. Retrieved November 2, 2019.

^ Kumar, Anita; Lippman, Daniel (January 21, 2019). "Trump aides nix his picks to take over DHS". Politico. Archived from the original on October 22, 2019. Retrieved October 21, 2019.

^ Lippman, Daniel; Kullgren, Ian; Kumar, Anita (October 31, 2019). "White House plans to name Chad Wolf acting DHS secretary". Politico. Archived from the original on November 1, 2019. Retrieved November 1, 2019.

^ Jump up to:a b Miroff, Nick (November 5, 2019). "Chad Wolf to take over at DHS, but Senate needs to confirm him for different job first". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on November 16, 2019. Retrieved November 7, 2019.

^ Katz, Eric (November 8, 2018). "Here's Why Some Are Questioning the Constitutionality of Trump's New Acting AG". Government Executive. Archivedfrom the original on November 12, 2018. Retrieved November 11, 2018.

^ Kight, Stef W.; Treene, Alayna (November 8, 2018). "Why Trump could face legal challenges over Whitaker". Axios. Archived from the original on October 17, 2019. Retrieved October 23, 2019.

^ Giaritelli, Anna (November 1, 2019). "Chad Wolf, former chief of staff to Kirstjen Nielsen, tapped as acting DHS head". Washington Examiner. Archived from the original on November 2, 2019. Retrieved November 2, 2019.

^ Levine, Marianne (November 13, 2019). "Republicans gripe about acting secretaries — and pave the way for another". Politico. Archived from the original on November 13, 2019. Retrieved November 13, 2019.

^ Miroff, Nick (November 13, 2019). "Chad Wolf sworn in as acting Department of Homeland Security chief, fifth under Trump". The Washington Post. Archivedfrom the original on November 13, 2019. Retrieved November 13, 2019.

^ Bublé, Courtney (November 15, 2019). "Top Democrats Call for Emergency Review of DHS Appointments". Government Executive. Archived from the original on November 15, 2019. Retrieved November 15, 2019.

^ Misra, Tanvi (November 15, 2019). "Legality of Wolf, Cuccinelli appointments to DHS questioned". Roll Call. Archived from the original on November 15, 2019. Retrieved November 15, 2019.

^ Nick Miroff, Trump suspends Global Entry, traveler programs for New York residents over 'sanctuary' policies Archived March 2, 2020, at the Wayback Machine, Washington Post (February 5, 2020).

^ Jump up to:a b Abigail Hauslohner, The Trump administration punished New York for its sanctuary policy. New York is suing. Archived February 26, 2020, at the Wayback Machine, Washington Post (February 7, 2020).

^ Geneva Sands, Global Entry to stay banned for NY until state grants access to DMV database, says DHS secretary Archived February 26, 2020, at the Wayback Machine, CNN (February 7, 2020).

^ Jump up to:a b c d e f Olmos, Sergio; Baker, Mike; Kanno-Youngs, Zolan (July 17, 2020). "Federal Agents Unleash Militarized Crackdown on Portland". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 18, 2020.

^ "Homeland Security head visits Portland, calls demonstrators 'violent mob' and defends federal officers". oregonlive. July 16, 2020. Retrieved July 18, 2020.

^ Mangan, Dan (July 17, 2020). "Oregon outrage: Elected officials blast federal authorities for grabbing protesters off the streets in Portland". CNBC. Retrieved July 18, 2020.

^ "Chad Wolf". Wexler & Walker. Archived from the original on September 21, 2016. Retrieved October 22, 2019.

External links

Appearances on C-SPAN

Political offices

Preceded by

Kevin McAleenan

Acting United States Secretary of Homeland Security

Acting

2019–present Incumbent

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Members of the Cabinet of the United States

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Interior ministers of the Group of Eight

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Presidential line of succession in the United States of America

Authority control Edit this at Wikidata

GND: 1214058345LCCN: no2019154569VIAF: 11157222599784970274WorldCat Identities: lccn-no2019154569

Categories: Living peoplePeople from Plano, TexasPlano East Senior High School alumniSouthern Methodist University alumniTrump administration cabinet membersUnited States Department of Homeland Security officialsUnited States Secretaries of Homeland Security

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/dhs-under-boss-were-taking-this-national July 18,

Well, we are – we welcome – the more investigations, the better. With as much lawbreaking is going on, we’re seeking to prosecute as many people as are breaking the law as it relates to federal jurisdiction. That’s not always happening with respect to local jurisdiction and local offenses. But, you know, this is a posture we intend to continue not just in Portland but in any of the facilities that we’re responsible for around the country.

his twit 4 pix of lots of grafitti, no ppl except a few cops

https://twitter.com/DHS_Wolf/status/1284095535067136002?s=20

:{Acting Secretary Chad Wolf:(style="border:0px solid black;box-sizing:border-box;display:inline;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;margin:0px;padding:0px;white-space:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;min-width:0px"):}:

@DHS_Wolf Jul 17

Our men and women in uniform are patriots. We will never surrender to violent extremists on my watch.

see portland secret police, retaliation, threat to pull $

Oregon

Beaverton city council passed a resolution in January 2017 stating, in part, "The City of Beaverton is committed to living its values as a welcoming city for all individuals ...regardless of a person's ... immigration status" and that they would abide by Oregon state law of not enforcing federal immigration laws.^[171]
Corvallis^[172]
Portland^[173]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_McAleenan

pal ICE

:{Wyden:(style="border:0px solid black;box-sizing:border-box;display:inline;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;margin:0px;padding:0px;white-space:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;min-width:0px"):}:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chad_Wolf

stubble pix, swamp thing

Chad F. Wolf is the acting Secretary of Homeland Security and Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Strategy, Policy, and Plans. He previously served in several positions in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including as Chief of Staff of the Transportation Security Administration and Chief of Staff to DHS secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. He was an architect of the Trump administration's family separation policy.

From 2005 to 2016, he was a lobbyist, helping clients to secure contracts from the Transportation Security Administration, his previous employer.

Education and early career

Wolf is originally from Plano, Texas.^[2] He graduated from Plano East Senior High School and then attended Collin College on a tennis scholarship.^[3] Wolf then earned a B.S. in U.S. history from Southern Methodist University.

He worked as a staffer for Republican Senators Phil Gramm, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and then Chuck Hagel, for whom he worked for two and a half years.^[3][4][5] From 2002 to 2005, Wolf worked in the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), becoming Assistant Administrator for Transportation Security Policy in 2005.^[4][5] From October 2005 to 2016, he was Vice President and Senior Director at Wexler & Walker,^[4][5] a now-defunct lobbying firm.^[6][7][2] He helped clients obtain contracts from the TSA, his previous employer.^[8]

In 2013 he received a Master Certificate in Government Contract Management from**Villanova**University.^[4]

Return to Department of Homeland Security

In March 2017 Wolf became Chief of Staff of the Transportation Security Administration.^[2][4]

In 2018 he became Chief of Staff of DHS under Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.^[4] While working for Nielsen, he was an early architect of the family separation policy.^[6] He later testified to Congress that his function was to provide information to the Secretary and "not to determine whether it was the right or wrong policy,"^[6] though he agreed with the decision to end the policy.^[9] He also testified that he was not involved in the initial development of the policy by the Executive Office of the President and the Attorney General, though this statement was disputed based on internal documents.^[10]

He then became Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Strategy, Plans, Analysis & Risk,^[4] a Senior Executive Service position not subject to Senate confirmation.^[11] He concurrently served as Acting Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Strategy, Policy, and Plans.^[4] He was nominated in February 2019 to serve permanently in the Under Secretary role,^[12] and his confirmation hearing was held that June,^[6] but the nomination was delayed by Senator Jacky Rosen to protest poor conditions for children at DHS facilities.^[13]

Acting Secretary

Wolf is sworn in as Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Strategy, Policy, and Plans with his family in 2019

Wolf briefs the White House press corps on the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020

Wolf's appointment as Acting Secretary of Homeland Security came after the departure of Kevin McAleenan was announced on November 1, 2019.^[14] The fact that he had previously lobbied for the National Association of Software and Services Companies, which wasin favor of the H-1B visa program, led to criticism from groups favoring more restrictive immigration policies,^[12][15] but the Trump administration defended his record^[6] and privately asked Republican senators not to oppose his appointment.^[16]

The administration waited for Wolf's confirmation as Under Secretary before appointing him to the Acting Secretary role,^[17] to avoid appointing him as a principal officer from a non-Senate-confirmed position, which many scholars and former government officials have argued is unconstitutional.^[14][18][19] DHS then had to move the Under Secretary position earlier in the line of succession, because the 210-day period in which an acting official may be named without a pending permanent nomination had expired, mandating that the duties of the Secretary must be performed by the department's seniormost confirmed official.^[17][20]

Wolf was confirmed as Under Secretary on November 13, 2019 on a 54–41 vote,^[21] and was sworn in as acting Secretary of Homeland Security the same day.^[22] On November 15, House Democrats Bennie Thompson and Carolyn Maloney requested that the Comptroller General of the United States review the legality of Wolf's appointment on the basis that former Acting Secretary McAleenan did not have authority to change the department's line of succession, asserting that former Secretary Nielsen had not properly placed McAleenan first in the line of succession before resigning, and additionally that McAleenan's change came after the 210-day limit to his authority had expired.^[9][23][24]

In February 2020, Wolf announced that the Trump administration was revoking New York residents' ability to participate in Global Entry and other Trusted Traveler programs, in response to the state's "sanctuary" immigration policies, which jeopardized the government’s ability to effectively vet travelers.^[25][26][27] The move prompted the State of New York to sue the administration.^[26]

In July 2020, Wolf sent federal agents dressed in camouflage and tactical gear to Portland, Oregon, where the agents used tear gas on protestors and pulled protestors into unmarked vehicles.^[28] The agents did not have obvious marking or identification.^[28] In the past, far-right militias had worn camouflage and tactical gear in clashes with other protestors in Portland, which sowed confusion.^[28] Oregon Governor Kate Brown described the action as "abuse of power," and accused Wolf of "provoking confrontation for political purposes."^[28] Portland mayor Ted Wheeler said it was "an attack on our democracy."^[28] Wolf said the protestors were a "violent mob" and "violent anarchists."^[28][29][30]