A16 N THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALWEDNESDAY, JULY 22, 2020
istration in recent days has been
on Portland, where there have
been nightly protests for weeks
denouncing systemic racism in
policing. In the last few days, fed-
eral agents from the Department
of Homeland Security and U.S.
Marshals, traveling in unmarked
cars, have swooped protesters off
the street without explaining why,
in some cases detaining them and
in other cases letting them go be-
cause they were not actually sus-
pects. The protests have in-
creased in size since the arrival of
federal officials.
Mr. Trump’s deployment of fed-
eral law enforcement is highly un-
usual: He is acting in spite of local
opposition — city leaders are not
asking for help — and his actions
go beyond emergency steps taken
by some past American leaders
like President George H.W. Bush,
who sent troops to quell Los Ange-
les in 1992 at the request of Califor-
nia officials.
In Washington on Tuesday, De-
partment of Homeland Security
officials held a news conference
for the first time to address the in-
creased federal deployment in
Portland, defending the tactics
and training of the agents. Chad F.
Wolf, the acting secretary, said a
federal statute allowed the agents
to move away from the court-
house that they had been told to
defend, to investigate crimes
against federal property and offi-
cers, even if it resulted in the de-
taining of a protester.
Another top official, Mark Mor-
gan, disputed claims that the
agents lacked adequate insignia,
showing reporters a camouflaged
ballistic vest labeled “POLICE.”
Mr. Wolf also blamed local officials
for the unrest in Portland. “I asked
the mayor and governor, how long
do you plan on having this contin-
ue?” Mr. Wolf said. “We stand
ready. I’m ready to pull my offi-
cers out of there if the violence
stops.”
The president has said he might
next deploy federal agents to Chi-
cago, and has listed other cities
where similar enforcement could
take place, including New York
but also Philadelphia and Detroit,
urban centers in two battleground
states. White House officials said
the deployments had grown out of
meetings among administration
officials after protests in Washing-
ton, D.C., in late May and early
June.
The White House has defended
the recent measures.
“By any objective standard, the
violence, chaos and anarchy in
Portland is unacceptable, yet
Democrats continue to put politics
above peace while this president
seeks to restore law and order,”
the White House press secretary,
Kayleigh McEnany, said at a brief-
ing on Tuesday morning. She
listed an array of items she said
protesters had hurled at law en-
forcement officers.
Trump administration officials
and campaign aides have woven
together the protests that began
after the killing of George Floyd in
May to try to bolster their claim
that under Mr. Biden, the police
would be “defunded.” While Mr.
Biden has walked a careful line
and said explicitly that he doesn’t
support defunding police depart-
ments, the Trump campaign has
continued to claim otherwise.
The most recent ad from the
Trump campaign, depicting the
break-in at a woman’s home, has a
singular goal: terrifying the
viewer into believing that claim.The ad’s audio includes a news
broadcast that talks about “Se-
attle’s pledge to defund its police
department,” referring to another
progressive city with which Mr.
Trump has feuded.
The spot hews to Mr. Trump’s
long-held preference for mes-
sages that promote fear and divi-
sion, dating to the first ad of his
2016 presidential campaign,
which depicted immigrants as
criminals. The campaign has al-
ready spent nearly $550,000 on its
new ad, which was released on
Monday.
Describing his opponents as
supporting violence while por-
traying police officers in glowing
terms has been a mainstay of Mr.
Trump’s public discourse since
the late 1980s.
Protests around the country
have been largely peaceful, with
spikes of conflict usually arising in
clashes with law enforcement.
While polls show that a majority of
voters support the Black Lives
Matter movement, Mr. Trump and
some of his advisers are counting
on a backlash, so far nonexistent,with white voters in the fall that
will boost the president’s num-
bers.
“Clearly what they’re looking to
do here is scare the living hell out
of seniors,” said Pia Carusone, a
Democratic ad maker. But, she
said, the new Trump ad falls shortin the realm of believability.
“You’re making the assumption
that the voter that you’re hoping
to convince is going to relate and
think that this could happen. And
then you have to make the leap to
blame Biden or the Democrats or
whoever. And I think it fails that
first test.”
Stuart Stevens, a Republican
strategist who now works with the
anti-Trump group known as theLincoln Project, said Mr. Trump’s
team was focusing on an issue
that doesn’t rank at the top of vot-
er concerns.
“I’d bet a lot that the actress
they hired for this is more worried
about Covid-19 than a phony
threat about cops,” Mr. Stevens
said.
Of the $24 million the Trump
campaign has spent over all on
television ads over the past 20
days, roughly $20 million has
gone to ads that focus solely on the
issue of the police. About 70 per-
cent of that $20 million has been
spent on a singular ad that shows
a split screen: One side depicts an
empty 911 call center, with an an-
swering service asking callers to
select their emergency, and the
other displays violent scenes from
the protests.
The Trump digital apparatus
has also been running a torrent of
ads warning of a country in crisis:
“Dangerous MOBS of far-left
groups are running through our
streets and causing absolute may-
hem,” one ad with 308 variations
reads, “They are DESTROYING
our cities and rioting.”The Trump team has spent at
least $2 million in the past two
months on Facebook ads with
similar themes, according to Ad-
vertising Analytics, an ad track-
ing firm.
The ads are on a political track.
But for former Homeland Securi-
ty officials who served in the first
year of the Trump administration,
seeing images of federal forces on
the streets of American cities was
distressing.
“People like me, who served a
long time, have to look very long
and hard to figure out who these
people are,” said Col. David La-
pan, a retired Marine who served
in the Trump administration in
2017 as a spokesman for the De-
partment of Homeland Security.
“For the average citizen, it looks
like the military is being used to
suppress American citizens. Even
if that’s not the case, and this is
law enforcement, it creates the
impression that the military is be-
ing used.”
In a statement on Tuesday
evening, Mr. Biden drew a parallel
with the largely peaceful pro-
testers who were cleared from a
park near the White House on
June 1 by armed law enforcement
officials using chemical irritants
before Mr. Trump’s photo-op out-
side a historic church.
“They are brutally attacking
peaceful protesters, including a
U.S. Navy veteran,” Mr. Biden said
of the force used in Portland. “Of
course the U.S. government has
the right and duty to protect fed-
eral property. The Obama-Biden
administration protected federal
property across the country with-
out resorting to these egregious
tactics — and without trying to
stoke the fires of division in this
country.” In response, Mr. Trump’s
campaign accused Mr. Biden of at-
tacking law enforcement officials.
Tom Ridge, the former gover-
nor of Pennsylvania who was the
first person to serve as secretary
of Homeland Security, also con-
demned Mr. Trump’s actions.
”The department was estab-
lished to protect America from the
ever-present threat of global ter-
rorism,” Mr. Ridge, a Republican,
told the radio host Michael Smer-
conish. “It was not established to
be the president’s personal mili-
tia.”
Mr. Ridge said it would be a
“cold day in hell” before he would
have consented as a governor to
what is taking place. “I wish the
president would take a more col-
laborative approach toward fight-
ing this lawlessness than the uni-
lateral approach he’s taken,” he
said.Campaign Ads Play on Fear as Trump Sends Agents Into City Streets
From Page AA “Defund the Police” painting near the White House. President Trump has tried to link Joseph R. Biden Jr. to the movement.ERIN SCHAFF/THE NEW YORK TIMESSpending $20 million
on TV commercials
with a dark message.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed
reporting. Jack Begg and Isabella
Grullón Paz contributed research.
Federal agents on Tuesday ar-
rested one of the most powerful
officials in Ohio state govern-
ment, the Republican House
speaker, along with a former state
Republican Party chairman and
three other people in what law en-
forcement officials described as a
$60 million scheme to bail out a
foundering energy company.
In a criminal complaint, the
F.B.I. described a wide-ranging
conspiracy in which the energy
company helped finance the elec-
tion of the House speaker, Larry
Householder, in 2018. It then al-
legedly bankrolled an effort led
by Mr. Householder to pass a $1.
billion bill subsidizing two trou-
bled nuclear power plants and a
campaign to defeat a 2019 refer-
endum to repeal that bill.
Along the way, the company
also put $500,000 into Mr. House-
holder’s personal accounts, in-
cluding more than $100,000 to pay
for costs related to a home he
owned in Florida, according to the
complaint. Millions more were
paid in bribes to Mr. Household-
er’s co-conspirators, the com-
plaint said.
The conspiracy was “likely the
largest bribery, money-launder-
ing scheme ever perpetrated
against the people of the state of
Ohio,” the United States attorney
for the Southern District of Ohio,
David M. DeVillers, said in a news
conference.
Though the criminal complaint
did not name the energy com-
pany, the two nuclear power
plants were owned by FirstEn-
ergy Solutions, a former subsid-
iary of FirstEnergy Corp. The en-
ergy company, now known as En-
ergy Harbor, said in a statement
on Tuesday that it had received
subpoenas “in connection with
the investigation surrounding
Ohio House Bill 6,” and intended
to cooperate with investigators.
Mr. Householder, 61, who was
arrested on his farm east of Co-
lumbus on Tuesday morning,
faces a maximum sentence of 20
years in prison and a $250,
fine, officials said. He is the sec-
ond recent Ohio House speaker to
be ensnared in a federal investi-
gation, following Cliff Rosen-
berger, who resigned in 2018 but
has yet to be charged with a
crime.
The speaker, a mainstay of Ohio
politics who is up for re-election
this year, previously served as
House speaker until stepping
down in 2004 amid reports of pos-
sible corruption, the complaintsaid. He was never charged, how-
ever, and successfully reclaimed
his old seat in 2016 before being
elected speaker in 2019.
Also arrested in the conspiracy
was Matt Borges, a former chair-
man of the Ohio Republican Party
and ally of John Kasich, a former
Ohio governor who sought the Re-
publican presidential nomination
in 2016. After Donald J. Trump
won the presidency in 2016, he in-
tervened to oust Mr. Borges. Last
month, Mr. Borges started a su-
per PAC aimed at convincing Re-
publicans to vote against Mr.
Trump in November.
The other people charged in the
scheme were Jeff Longstreth, apolitical strategist for Mr. House-
holder; Juan Cespedes, a lobbyist
also close to Mr. Householder;
and Neil Clark, a lobbyist.
Dave Anderson, the policy and
communications manager for the
Energy and Policy Institute, a
nonprofit organization that sup-
ports clean energy, said FirstEn-
ergy Solutions needed Mr. House-
holder’s help because its coal and
nuclear plants could not generate
electricity cheaply enough to
compete with newer and cleaner
forms of energy. The bailout legis-
lation, House Bill 6, helped sup-
port two of the company’s nuclear
plants and several coal plants, Mr.
Anderson said.
“Once he was elected,” Mr. An-
derson said of Mr. Householder,
“he made passing this bill a top
priority of his.” It was signed by
Gov. Mike DeWine in 2019.
On Tuesday, Mr. DeWine called
for Mr. Householder’s resigna-
tion. “This is a sad day for Ohio,”
the governor said in a statement.
FirstEnergy Solutions filed for
bankruptcy in 2018, and after re-
structuring became known as En-
ergy Harbor in February.
Funds from FirstEnergy fi-
nanced the successful campaigns
of what Mr. DeVillers called“Team Householder” — 21 candi-
dates who subsequently sup-
ported Mr. Householder as
speaker. All but one voted for
House Bill 6.
Much of the company’s money
went to a nonprofit organization
called Generation Now that sup-
ported political and lobbying
campaigns. A major portion, as
much as $38 million, was spent
defeating a referendum to repeal
the bailout bill. Mr. DeVillers de-
scribed the payments as “akin to
bags of cash” that were “not regu-
lated, not reported, not subject to
public scrutiny.”
Ohio’s secretary of state, Frank
LaRose, said he had referred 19
possible violations of Ohio cam-
paign finance laws relating to the
conspiracy to the Ohio Elections
Commission.
House Republicans issued a
statement on Tuesday saying
they were “shocked” to learn
about the charges against Mr.
Householder. “To our knowledge,
no other member of the Ohio Gen-
eral Assembly is under investiga-
tion in connection with these alle-
gations. We have not been in con-
tact with Speaker Householder
today,” the statement says.
Mr. DeVillers said the investi-
gation is continuing.Ohio House Speaker Is Arrested in Bribery Scheme
By GIULIA McDONNELL NIETO
DEL RIOLarry Householder, Ohio’s House speaker, is charged in a scheme to bail out an energy company.JOHN MINCHILLO/ASSOCIATED PRESSReid J. Epstein contributed report-
ing.
Powerful Republicans
are tied to a $
million conspiracy.
Representative Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, the first-term New
Yorker who is a favorite of the pro-
gressive left and a frequent target
of President Trump and Republi-
cans, said on Tuesday that she had
been the victim of “virulent har-
assment” by a Republican con-
gressman who referred to her
with a pair of expletives on the
steps of the Capitol.
In a confrontation on Monday
outside the Capitol reported by
The Hill newspaper, Representa-
tive Ted Yoho of Florida ap-
proached Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and
told her she was “disgusting” for
suggesting that poverty and un-
employment were driving a rise in
crime in New York City.
After a brief and tense ex-
change, the newspaper said, Mr.
Yoho walked away from Ms. Oca-
sio-Cortez, uttering a pair of ex-
pletives.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of
New York, confirmed the ex-
change on Twitter on Tuesday, al-
though a spokesman for Mr. Yoho
later denied that the congressman
had called her any names, saying
he had instead used a barnyard
epithet to describe what he
thought of her policies.
But Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who ar-
rived on Capitol Hill in 2019 with
an outsize profile — a Hispanic
progressive who is the youngest
woman ever to serve in Congress
— and has frequently been a tar-
get of derision by white Republi-
can men, sought to turn Mr. Yoho’s
insult to her advantage.
“I never spoke to Rep. Yoho be-
fore he decided to accost me on
the steps of the nation’s Capitol
yesterday,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez
wrote. “Believe it or not, I usually
get along fine w/ my GOP col-
leagues. We know how to check
our legislative sparring at the
committee door. But hey, ‘b*tches’
get stuff done.”
As news of the episode spread
on Capitol Hill, Representative
Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of
Maryland and the majority leader,
called for Mr. Yoho to formally
apologize to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez on
the House floor, saying the Repub-
lican’s actions were “despicable.”
“It was an act of a bully,” Mr.
Hoyer told reporters.
Representative Kevin McCar-
thy, Republican of California andthe minority leader, said he was
unsure about the facts of the alter-
cation, but met with Mr. Yoho to
discuss what had happened.
“We think everyone should
show respect to
one another,”
Mr. McCarthy
told reporters.
A spokesman
for Mr. Yoho de-
nied the
episode took
place in the way
that several
witnesses de-
scribed, and
criticized Ms.
Ocasio-Cortez for “using this ex-
change to gain personal atten-
tion.”
“He did not call Rep. Ocasio-
Cortez what has been reported in
The Hill or any name for that mat-
ter,” the spokesman, Brian
Kaveney, said in an email. “In-
stead, he made a brief comment to
himself as he walked away sum-
marizing what he believes her
policies to be.”
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has fre-
quently been attacked by Republi-
cans since she was elected to Con-
gress.
The week she was sworn in, Re-
publicans booed her on the House
floor as she cast her vote for
Nancy Pelosi as speaker.
Last year, the House took the
unusual step of voting to condemn
as racist Mr. Trump’s attacks
against Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and
three other congresswomen of
color, after he said they should “go
back” to their countries. (Ms. Oca-
sio-Cortez was born in New York.)
Several male lawmakers,
mostly Democrats, expressed out-
rage on behalf of Ms. Ocasio-
Cortez on Twitter on Tuesday, with
some suggesting that Mr. Yoho’s
attack was a reflection of how con-
servatives have sought to demon-
ize her because of her gender and
race.
“Like @aoc, I believe poverty to
be a root cause of crime,” Repre-
sentative Dean Phillips, Demo-
crat of Minnesota, wrote. “Won-
der why Rep. Yoho hasn’t ac-
costed me on the Capitol steps
with the same sentiment?
#shameful.”
Representative Ruben Gallego,
Democrat of Arizona, wrote: “I
have suggested the same thing
that @aoc has poverty & unem-
ployment lead to crime. Weird nei-
ther Yoho or any other member
has ever talked to me that way.”Ocasio-Cortez Embraces
G.O.P. Congressman’s Insult
By LUKE BROADWATERRep. Ted YohoNicholas Fandos contributed re-
porting.