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Acting Deputy DHS Secretary Ken Cuccinelli had some choice words in the form a of Twitter thread yesterday. They were directed at a conservative ally in Washington DC, Senator Rand Paul, who appears to have been taken in by propaganda on mainstream media being used to improperly portray Homeland Security’s recent actions in Portland, Oregon.
(2/x) … “these situations” include attacks on federal law enforcement OFFICERS (not troops) and federal facilities; (2) it overlooks @DHSgov’s statutory responsibility to protect the federal facilities and personnel under violent attack; (3) did I mention there are no “troops”?
— Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli (@HomelandKen) July 21, 2020
(4/x) (5) federal agents are not “rounding people up at will.” This is an incredibly offensive assertion. It suggests @DHSgov officers randomly picked this subject up – that’s ridiculous. They identified themselves 3 blocks away to the subject, at which point he fled on foot…
— Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli (@HomelandKen) July 21, 2020
(6/x) … the picture in the tweet.@DHSgov , #FPS , @CBP , & @ICEgov officers and agents are preserving liberty (and life and property) in Portland. I would have been happy to explain that to Sen. @RandPaul if he had asked.
— Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli (@HomelandKen) July 21, 2020
The ongoing riots in Portland and progressive cities across the nation have endangered the well-being and property of law abiding American citizens. While Paul is correct in asserting that this is a local law enforcement issue, we’re now nearly eight weeks into the “protests” with no signs of deescalation. Local law enforcement has had their collective hands tied by radical leftist politicians, leaving DHS no choice but to defend federal property on their own.
A viral video made its rounds the other day and apparently captured the attention of the Senator. But as Cuccinelli noted in his Twitter thread, the viral video only tells a small part of the story. In the video, DHS officers can be seen apprehending a man in front of a federal building and putting him into a van. The optics on this were rightly negative as it seemed like the type of actions we would see in East Germany before the wall came down.
Cuccinelli gave the incident context and corrected some of the errors reported by mainstream media and embraced by the Senator. What was seen was the culmination of a three-block chase that started because the suspect matched the description of a rioter who had just assaulted a federal law enforcement officer. They weren’t randomly “rounding people up” but were acting on their authority and under the precepts of probable cause to take a suspect into custody and question him in a safer location.
Paul’s point is that we cannot devolve into a society in which federal law enforcement keeps an iron grip over any jurisdiction. The fact that they can does not mean they ever should, and with all of the turmoil across the nation we’re hearing calls for federal intervention coming from all sides, including many constitutional conservatives who would normally oppose such actions. There is always a risk of overreach and Paul is right to monitor for such actions. Thankfully, what’s happening in Portland right now is not an example of it. They handled the situation properly.
I like Paul, and nine times out of ten he’s on the right side of a debate. He’s correct when he said we cannot give up liberty for security. But it’s equally right that we cannot give up security over false leftist narratives. Cuccinelli was justified in his response.
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