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New Mexico secretary of state worries Trump's federal troops will disrupt the elections
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2020/7/23/1963349/-Trump-has-good-reason-to-deploy-federal-troops-to-diverse-cities-intimidating-voters-of-colorNew Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver has some concerns about Donald Trump's plan to deploy uninvited federal agents to large urban centers with high populations of people of color just several months out from the most consequential election of his lifetime.
"As we approach the election, again, in just about 105 days from today," Oliver told MSNBC Thursday, "if they are still here, who's to say whether or not these agents could potentially be used to intimidate or otherwise disturb the election process while they're here."
On Wednesday, Trump and Attorney General William Barr announced they planned to send some 200 federal agents to Chicago and 35 to Albuquerque, New Mexico. The new deployments, Barr said, were an extension of a program tagged Operation Legend that had already been initiated with a detail of more than 200 federal agents to Kansas City, Missouri. Barr also lied during Thursday's announcement, claiming the Kansas City deployment had already led to 200 arrests in just two weeks. Bzzzzz—false. As Kansas City Washington correspondent Bryan Lowry noted, "The 200 arrests weren't in a two week span, they weren't part of Operation Legend and they didn't lead to any new federal charges." The Justice Department later admitted Barr's error, saying some arrests had been made by state and local officials long before DOJ had initiated the new operation. Oops.
Beyond that inauspicious start, New Mexico's Oliver noted that the process the Trump administration used for determining where and when to send federal agents had completely lacked transparency and accountability. The administration has floated a series of rolling explanations for deploying federal agents to certain cities, she said, including to quell unrest, protect federal buildings, and most recently to address ongoing criminal activity.
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