Trump’s Federal Police Surge Could Provoke an Election Day Constitutional Crisis
“Courts must end Trump’s paramilitary urban war against Democratic mayors and cities ahead of the November election, voting rights and legal experts tell Truthout, otherwise they leave open the possibility of an unprecedented constitutional crisis buttressed by the president’s personal secret police.
“As President Trump prepares an additional “surge” of federal agents into Democratic-led U.S. cities, including Chicago and Albuquerque, after days of dystopian images of unidentified feds brutalizing and kidnapping protesters in Portland, local leaders are balking. State and local officials have filed several lawsuits against Trump’s unprecedented police-state practices in Portland, and other targeted states are gearing up for their own legal fights.
“At least four lawsuits have been filed in federal court relating to the feds’ handling of Portland’s protests, which have roiled for more than 60 nights after the Minneapolis police-perpetrated killing of George Floyd.”
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“Without a permanent injunction against Trump’s brazen deployments of secret stormtroopers by fall, there remains a chance that he could try to use them to bolster another army: The Republican Party is recruiting 50,000 partisan poll watchers to deploy in key precincts around the country to intimidate voters of color under the guise of protecting against virtually nonexistent “voter fraud.”
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