Speaking with members of the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, July 28, Attorney General William Barr told congressmen that rioters in Portland have been bringing deadly weapons, such as “knives, rifles and explosives,” as well as other, more rudimentary weapons to protests.
“Every night for the past two months a mob of hundreds of rioters have laid siege to the federal courthouse and other nearby federal property,” Barr said in his opening statement. “The rioters have come equipped for fighting. Armed with powerful slingshots, tasers, [sledgehammers], saws, knives, rifles and explosive devices.”
Barr went on to note that this large mob has gone up against a small number of federal personnel that are tasked with defending federal property.
“What unfolds nightly around the courthouse cannot be reasonably called ‘protest.’ It is, by any objective measure, an assault on the government of the United States.”
The rifles and explosives that Barr referred to were discovered by the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) on Monday, July 27. The items in question are several Molotov cocktails and loaded rifle magazines that were found in a bag near Lownsdale Square, the park that lies in front of the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse, the federal courthouse that Barr refers to in his congressional testimony.
Along with this, the Department of Justice also published several photos detailing all of the different kinds of weapons that have been seized during the rioting outside of the federal courthouse. These included shields, gasoline, hockey sticks, leaf blowers and paint sprayers. (Related: Federal officers in Portland may have been PERMANENTLY blinded by rioters with lasers.)
Barr added in his statement that what has been missing from the rioters’ nightly skirmishes with local and federal law enforcement is any kind of attempt, even superficial ones, to connect their destructive actions with the death or George Floyd or with any other legitimate call for meaningful police reform.
Barr defends Trump’s decisions in front of committee filled with Democrats
Not everybody in the House Judiciary Committee was impressed by Barr’s testimony. During the five hours he spent in front of the congressmen, Barr faced nothing but partisan hostility from the Democrats, who made up a majority of the committee. Democratic committee members kept interrupting Barr whenever he tried to answer their questions, which in turn forced the attorney general to become frustrated and raise his voice on several occasions just so he wasn’t drowned out.
“I’m going to answer the damn question,” Barr said at one point, as Colorado Rep. Joe Neguse, continued to interrupt the attorney general during a particularly heated exchange concerning the recent firing of Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Attorney for the southern district of New York. Berman recently testified that Barr had repeatedly pressured him to resign because President Trump wanted to make room for his desired nominee for U.S. attorney.
Fortunately, Barr had some allies in the form of the Republican congressmen in the committee, who accused the Democrats of intentionally misrepresenting the current events in Portland and other large and crime-ridden cities controlled by elected officials from the Democratic Party. These House Republicans have also supported Barr’s comments about how the legitimate and peaceful protests have been taken over by violent instigators.
However, this was not enough to deter the Democrats. When Barr was questioned by the committee chairman, New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, regarding what Barr had discussed with the president concerning the deployment of federal law enforcement officers to Portland, Nadler immediately became hostile after Barr refused to answer his questions.
Nadler would continue to ask Barr over and over if Trump was using the deployment of federal agents to Portland as part of a reelection campaign strategy, and each time Barr would answer that he would not discuss his conversations with the president.
“Shame on you, Mr. Barr,” said Nadler aggressively, “Shame on you.”
Nadler and the other Democrats on the committee also criticized Trump’s expansion of the federal crime initiative Operation Legend. Included in this plan are the sending 50 agents to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and as many as 300 federal officers to Chicago as part of a nationwide crackdown on crime. The Democrats alleged that these deployments of federal resources are not legitimate and are most likely a stunt to help Trump’s reelection campaign.
Barr fought back by stating that these are not valid characterizations. He was also quick to point out the difference between federal agents being sent to Portland, a city where federal officers and property are being threatened, and to other cities across the country that are seeing a massive increase in violent crime.
“We are on the defense,” Barr said. “We are not looking for trouble.”
Learn more about what the Democratic Party is doing to try and take down the Trump administration by reading the articles at Traitors.news.
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