From as long as I have been watching — from the administrations of Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush — the GOP’s posture toward the rule of law is that rules apply primarily to their enemies. For their friends, rules are more like guidelines, and those are movable. Here’s how they define law and order down:
- Find the line.
- Step over it.
- Dare someone to push you back .
- No pushback? New line.
- Repeat.
Step over it
Strategywise, Republicans love a twofer. In Portland, Ore., a federal magistrate is simultaneously violating the rights of the administration’s enemies while violating the Constitution, say constitutional lawyers consulted by ProPublica. A federal magistrate is barring some charged protesters from participating in further demonstrations:
“Defendant may not attend any other protests, rallies, assemblies or public gathering in the state of Oregon,” states one “Order Setting Conditions of Release” for an accused protester, alongside other conditions such as appearing for court dates. The orders are signed by federal magistrate judges.
For other defendants, the restricted area is limited to Portland, where clashes between protesters and federal troops have grown increasingly violent in recent weeks. In at least two cases, there are no geographic restrictions; one release document instructs, “Do not participate in any protests, demonstrations, rallies, assemblies while this case is pending.”
Protesters felt pressured to agree to those terms to gain release from jail.
“Those terms were given to me after being in a holding cell after 14 hours,” Bailey Dreibelbis, who was charged July 24 with “failing to obey a lawful order,” told ProPublica. “It was pretty cut-and-dried, just, ‘These are your conditions for [getting out] of here.’
“If I didn’t take it, I would still be in holding. It wasn’t really an option, in my eyes.”
But such a restriction is overly broad and likely not “constitutionally defensible,” Jameel Jaffer of Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute tells ProPublica.
New line
Many protesters have been accused of minor offenses under Title 40, Section 1315 of the U.S. Code empowering the Secretary of Homeland Security to “protect the buildings, grounds, and property” of the federal government and “persons on the property.” This is the same law that allows the acting president to justify a show of force in deploying federal officers to Portland, ProPublica reports. “But the use of that same law to file criminal charges appears to be novel.”
Several protesters who were let go on July 23 had bans against demonstrating added by hand on their release documents by Magistrate Judge John V. Acosta, who signed off on them, a review by ProPublica found. Acosta’s office did not respond to ProPublica’s questions.
For those released on July 24, the restriction was added to the original typed document, also signed by Acosta. One protester arrested and released earlier in the month had his conditions of release modified at his arraignment on July 24. The modified order, signed by Acosta, added a protest ban not previously included.
The New York Times reports that “top federal law enforcement officials” have been “gung-ho” to respond to protests against police violence. The FBI’s deputy director in a June 2 memo called not only for investigation of “violent protesters, instigators” and “inciters,” but suggested the Hobbes Act for prosecuting racketeering in labor groups might come into play. Attorney General William Barr on Tuesday called the Portland protests in fact “an assault on the government of the United States.”
The Times continues:
The deployment has not only outraged local officials who have asked federal agents to leave, but it has also raised questions about the authority that federal officers are operating under.
The Department of Homeland Security has cited a law that permits federal agents to “conduct investigations” into crimes against federal property or officers. But in recent days, officers have left the grounds of the courthouse in Portland and pursued protesters through the streets, firing tear gas and pepper balls, advancing to areas where the courthouse was no longer visible.
Repeat
So now, Donald Trump’s third-world tactic of abducting people he brands terrorists has been picked up by the New York Police Department. A bystander shot the video below at a New York City Black Lives Matter protest on Tuesday.
A tweet related to the Abolition Park protest group early this morning suggests the woman abducted by un-uniformed, un-badged men in an unmarked van has been released. Several “officers” dragged the woman into the van while others wearing T-shirts and shorts, hands on their guns, kept other protesters at bay. Bicycle officers swarmed around the van to protect the snatch operation.
Police released a statement on the abduction via Twitter:
“In regard to a video on social media that took place at 2 Ave & 25 St, a woman taken into custody in an unmarked van was wanted for damaging police cameras during 5 separate criminal incidents in & around City Hall Park,” an NYPD News tweet read. “The arresting officers were assaulted with rocks & bottles.”
Good luck finding evidence of rocks and bottles in the video.
After the abduction, massing police boxed protesters into Washington Square Park, according to an Abolition Park video posted to Instagram.
The New York Post reported after her release that Nikki Stone, 18, was charged with several counts of “graffiti and criminal mischief” and other vandalism-related charges.
Unmarked vans. Unidentified cops. Hands on guns. Massed police. Over graffiti. Tear gas and impact munitions in Portland. How great is Trump’s America?
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Note: The pandemic will upend standard field tactics in 2020. If enough promising “improvisations” come my way, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.