Monday on Fox News Channel’s “Your World,” network senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano criticized President Donald Trump for sending badgeless federal officers without the coordination of local authorities to quell protests in Portland.
Napolitano called it “unconstitutional” and “plain wrong.”
Napolitano said, “Here, you have locals who look to Antifa and Antifa supporters for political support. The local authorities, Mayor Wheeler, is not going to let the police do what they want to do. You have a vice here. You have anarchy on one hand. If the troops come in the streets, you have a potential for even more violence on the other hand.”
He continued, “What happened in Portland over the weekend, it was not only unlawful and unconstitutional, it’s just plain wrong. Sending armed, untrained police into the streets wearing fatigues without the knowledge or consent of the local police actually caused more violence. All the people that they arrested, they didn’t file one criminal complaint against anybody because they didn’t have a basis to do so. They were just grabbing innocents off the streets.”
He added, “You have a lot of peaceful demonstrators. The complaint filed by the Attorney General of Oregon against the Department of Homeland Security recounts horror stories of peaceful people being kidnapped, held blindfold, handcuffed, and incommunicado for just two hours and then let go. There is no reason to disturb those people. The people they should stop are the ones with the baseball bats.”
He concluded, “The federal government can’t do what it doesn’t have the authority to do. And it shouldn’t do anything without the coordination of the locals.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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