Jules Witcover

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration, in the name of law and order, sent uninvited border, immigration and other federal officers into Portland, Ore., to suppress mostly peaceful protesters against racial violence. These camouflage-clad officers have been seen herding protesters into unmarked vehicles and have generally escalated tensions in the city.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, gassed in the street, has called it “urban warfare” and an “egregious overreaction” that must end. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has complained of “a blatant abuse of power.”

This week Trump announced that federal officers will be deployed to Albuquerque, Chicago, Baltimore and Philadelphia as part of “Operation Legend,” a federal effort already in motion in Kansas City, ostensibly to tackle the problem of violent crime.

The President has pinned the blame on recent efforts ‘to defund, dismantle and dissolve our police departments,” saying “extreme politicians have joined this anti-police crusade and relentlessly vilified our law enforcement heroes.” He has singled out cities with Democratic mayors who have pointedly said no such outside assistance was needed or requested.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has called the action “a political stunt,” accusing Trump of “trying to divert attention from his failed leadership on COVID-19,” the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the country. She said of the outsider federals: “We welcome actual partnership. But we do not welcome dictatorship, we do not welcome authoritarianism, and we will not welcome unconstitutional arrest and detainment of our residents.”

At the same time, the two Oregon Democratic senators, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, demanded that the departments of Justice and of Homeland Security investigate “the unrequested presence and violent actions of recently deployed federal forces in Portland.” Wyden said, “If the line is not drawn in the sand right now, Americans may be staring down the barrel of martial law in the middle of a presidential election.”

Further heightening the concerns of local Democratic officials, 15 of them, including District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser. Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, wrote Attorney General William Barr and acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf waning that such deployment of federal officials to their cities was “unprecedented and violates fundamental constitutional protections and tenets of federalism.”

Barr sought to draw a distinction between normal crowd control of peaceful protests and what he saw as “riots and mob violence.” He said: “This is a different kind of operation, obviously, than the tactical teams we use to defend against riots and mob violence. … (T)he operations we’re discussing today are … classic crime fighting.”

The whole furor appears part of an administration attempt to cast Biden and the Democrats as anti-police in the running dispute over “defunding the police.” Although Biden has flatly denied such a notion, he has called for more federal assistance to local jurisdictions for beefing up peaceful patrolling and other community relations between cops on the beat and the citizenry.

Trump meanwhile has said any talk of defunding the police “has led to a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence,” with no evidence offered to substantiate the contention.

But the infusion of federal officials intended for border patrol and immigration tasks to keep the peace in these cities has triggered more Democratic concerns that Trump in advance of the November election could resort to police-state clampdowns on such things as voting by mail and the monitoring of polling places.

There is also increasing speculation that the sitting president, if defeated in November, might challenge the outcome and even refuse to leave the White House. Asked on Fox News last week, he said: “I have to see. I’m not going to just say yes, I’m not going to say no. I didn’t say last time, either.”

As for the most recent Washington Post-ABC News poll showing him trailing Biden by 55% to 40%, he said: “I’m not losing, because those are fake polls.” He added: “I’m not a good loser. I don’t like to lose.”

The Biden campaign observed: “The American people will decide the election. And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House.”

The stage seems set for a memorable conclusion, whatever the result.

Jules Witcover’s latest book is “The American Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power,” published by Smithsonian Books. You can respond to this column at juleswitcovercomcast.net.

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