The Washington Post - USA (2020-08-02)

A8 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, AUGUST 2 , 2020

BY ADAM TAYLOR

portland, ore. — For the sec- ond consecutive evening after federal law enforcement officers retreated from the front lines in this city, protesters had almost no interaction with state police as thousands gathered downtown until early Saturday morning. Oregon State Police, who took over in the protection of a federal courthouse on Thursday, were rarely seen outside the building, despite a lingering crowd that screamed anti-police slogans and set several large fires in the street. Unlike Thursday evening, when there was an air of celebra- tion, the tone of the protest on Friday evening seemed more somber and, at times, conflicted. Without the federal officers sent by the Trump administration to rally against — not to mention the threat of tear gas, rubber bullets and arrests they brought with them — the protesters tackled more compli- cated questions among themselves. Some favored a confrontation, setting off firecrackers or throw- ing projectiles at the still-fenced- off courthouse. Others argued that a more measured approach was needed. When a group of black- clad protesters set an American flag on fire, a group of mothers quickly moved to extinguish it and sparked a shouting match. “You’re on the same side!” one protester on the sidelines yelled, trying to de-escalate the situation as a small group nearby sang: “There’s no such thing as a bad protester.” T he fire died out, though larger fires were soon started in its place. Right-wing activists shared videos of the flames on social media and suggested that local police were not doing enough to disperse the crowd, though there appeared to have been no sub- stantial damage caused. The protests in Portland began in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in late May. Though the city is often associated with liberal politics and has a long- standing protest movement, it is also one of the whitest large U.S. cities and has a history of racism. Crowds of thousands had gathered outside the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse for more than two months. In July, the Trump administration sent more than 100 law

enforcement officers to protect federal property. The arrival of the officers seemed to galvanize the movement, bringing a wider por- tion of Portland’s population to protest what they saw as unfair and aggressive police tactics. After weeks of escalating violence, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) on Wednesday announced she had reached a deal with the Trump administration for state police to take over guarding the courthouse. After the first night of the new arrangement passed without violence, Brown said it was a victory for the city. “The president’s deci- sion to send federal troops to Portland was a political stunt and it backfired,” the governor said in a video statement Friday. But as a large crowd gathered hours later outside Portland’s Jus- tice Center, adjacent to the federal courthouse, it was also clear that protesters had their own scars from the weeks of action. At the start of the night, a number of speakers apologized for their hoarse voices, saying they had been out for “60-some- thing” days. Throughout the evening, protesters could be heard coughing and saying they be- lieved the once-nightly tear gas had infiltrated the dust in the two parks outside the courthouse. The crowd on Friday evening was larger than in previous nights. Whereas the speeches at the start of the night had once focused on the removal of federal law enforcement officers, on Friday, those officers were rarely mentioned. For many here, the larger battle is ongoing: There are still wide- spread calls to defund the city police or improve inequalities in housing access, for example. “Homeland Security is not leav- ing Portland until local police com- plete cleanup of Anarchists and Agitators!” the president tweeted in the evening, referring to some federal officers still in the city. In a statement released early Saturday, Portland City Police ac- knowledged that a large fire had been started with debris at around 1:30 a.m. outside the courthouse. “Over the next hour the number of people dwindled to a few dozen,” the statement said. “There was no police interaction with the crowd.” [email protected]

In Portland, a somber tone

as peaceful protests continue BY SHANE HARRIS AND NICK MIROFF

A senior Department of Home-
land Security official whose office
compiled “intelligence reports”
about journalists and protesters
in Portland, Ore., has been re-
moved from his job, according to
people familiar with the matter.
Brian Murphy, the acting un-
dersecretary for intelligence and
analysis, was reassigned to a new
position in the department’s man-
agement directorate, an adminis-
trative support office, the people
said, speaking on the condition of
anonymity to discuss a personnel
matter.
Acting homeland security sec-
retary Chad Wolf made the deci-
sion on Friday.
Murphy’s removal follows reve-
lations in The Washington Post
that the Office of Intelligence and
Analysis (I & A) at DHS compiled
Open Source Intelligence Reports
about the work of two journalists
who had published leaked depart-
ment documents. In a separate
intelligence report, the office also
analyzed the communications of
protesters in Portland.
DHS has been under mounting
scrutiny from lawmakers and civil
liberties groups over its use of
federal law enforcement officers
to quell protests in Portland and in
light of President Trump’s threat
to deploy federal personnel to oth-
er cities that he asserts are being
overrun by violent criminals.
Members of Congress last week
cited I & A’s collection of informa-
tion about journalists and protest-
ers as an alarming encroachment
of government authority into ac-
tivities protected by the First
Amendment.
Wolf ordered I & A to stop col-
lecting information on journalists
and ordered an investigation after
The Post reported the practice on
Thursday. Murphy will work as an
“adviser” in the management office
while that investigation proceeds, a
senior department official said.
Wolf has also asked the Home-
land Security inspector general to
investigate efforts by I & A to
collect information about journal-
ists or protesters, according to two
people familiar with the matter.
Members of the department’s
advisory council, which includes
numerous retired high-ranking
government officials and former
lawmakers, were “furious” to

learn that the department was compiling information about journalists in reports normally used to share information about suspected terrorists and violent extremists, according to two people with knowledge of the advis- ers’ reactions. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelli- gence Committee, said on Satur- day that he was concerned Mur- phy “may have provided incom- plete and potentially misleading information to Committee staff” during a recent briefing about the office’s activities in Portland. Fol- lowing news reports, including in The Post, that DHS had expanded some of its authorities to monitor protesters, the committee had de- manded a broad range of documents and information. “We will be expanding our over- sight even further in the coming days,” Schiff said in a statement. Murphy had previously told staff on the House and Senate intelligence committees that his office did not collect, analyze or exploit information on the elec- tronic devices or accounts of protesters. On Friday, Democratic senators sent Murphy a letter ask- ing him to confirm that was true. Murphy spoke with staff of the House and Senate intelligence committees on July 23 and was asked about I & A’s activities in Portland as well as what legal authorities the office was using to justify a new mission: collecting and disseminating information on protesters who threatened to damage or destroy public memorials and statues, including those

not on federal property, according to officials familiar with the briefing. In a follow-up call, DHS lawyers pointed to existing guidelines is- sued for the department by the attorney general, as well as an Obama-era order that they now claimed allowed DHS to protect and undertake specific intelligence collection and analysis re- garding not only iconic monu- ments such as the Statue of Liber- ty, but also smaller statues and memorials. On the call, congressional staff expressed skepticism that the lawyers had offered a plausible interpretation of their authorities, according to officials. At the conclusion of the call, congressional officials told DHS that the call had raised their con- cerns more than assuaged them, and expressed serious reservations that DHS was “stretching its legal authorities too far,” according to officials familiar with the call. Murphy is a former FBI agent who worked on the bureau’s efforts to combat radicalization. Current and former colleagues have described him as hard-charg- ing and driven and said he has a history of defying managers and bosses to pursue the course of action he deems appropriate. In 2007, he was the subject of a magazine profile that extolled his investigative skills and compared his relentlessness to the T- “killer robot” from the movie “Ter- minator 2.” Some current officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly, said Murphy has earned a reputation at DHS for

aggressively trying to expand the operations of the intelligence office. Although it is technically an element of the broader intelligence community, I & A publishes reports largely based on unclassi- fied or public sources and is not designed to engage in clandestine investigations or operations like the FBI or the CIA. Murphy tried to fashion the office into more of an operational player, akin to those larger agen- cies, and drew scrutiny and criti- cism internally over his efforts, some officials said. One noted that I & A’s collection of information involving journalists was effec- tively the last straw and led to his ouster. Officials have also worried that Murphy was misapplying the authorities of I & A. For example, the intelligence reports about the journalists’ work appeared to justify collecting the information under a standing requirement for intelligence about cybersecurity threats. It was unclear how tweets by journalists constituted a threat to cybersecurity, which the department usually interprets as hackers trying to dis- able critical infrastructure or break into classified computers. Recently, Murphy tried to broaden the definition of violent protesters in Portland, in a way that some officials felt was intend- ed to curry favor with the White House. According to an internal memo, Murphy announced that the label “violent opportunists,” which his office had used to describe people who were attacking law enforcement personnel and property, would be changed to “violent anti- fa anarchists.” Murphy argued that the violent protesters were not merely taking advantage of a moment but had “overwhelmingly” been linked to radical ideologies “driving individ- uals toward violence.” That conclusion was undercut by an earlier DHS analysis that found there was not enough information about the Portland protesters for the department to know how they might be connected to anti-fascist or anar- chist groups and what precisely was motivating them. Many of the protests in Portland have been peaceful and in response to police violence around the country. [email protected] [email protected]

DHS o∞cial is removed from position, reassigned

MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ/ASSOCIATED PRESS Federal officers arrest a demonstrator at the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland, Ore., on Wednesday.

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