I’m not intentionally copying Jack here but these things really are of a piece. First, Kyle Iboshi of KGW tweeted this incredible video of Billy Williams, the U.S. Attorney for Oregon, flat out denying that federal troops have been “out on the street”, at which point the video cuts to footage of federal troops out on the streets, which of course they have been, night after night, as Jack points out sometimes “as far as the bus mall”.
Williams previously had asked the Inspector General of the Department of Justice to look into the federal presence here in Portland, and that received its due skepticism at the time. Now that Williams is just flat out lying—and for the life of me I can’t believe it’s another other than a brazen lie, because it’s inconceivable to me that the U.S. Attorney for Oregon had seen absolutely none of the footage of federal troops in the streets—that’s pretty much a lock on the idea that there’s no help coming from the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Inextricably linked to all of this is the fact that a federal judge has denied Oregon’s request for a restraining order against these paramilitary shock troops, apparently on the basis that the State of Oregon simply has no standing to represent its citizens in the federal courts. Inexplicably, to my layman’s brain anyway, the judge further deems “an injunction against future conduct” to be “an extraordinary form of relief”, despite the fact that temporary restraining orders are legitimate tool that courts use all the time.
It’s more or less a given that no one expected any part of the federal government to rescue Portland from the jackbooted part of the federal government, and anything that does happen probably will be something of an outlier, but it’s still something of a face-smack to have their lack of concern laid out so plainly.
Bonus read: Christina Cauterucci for Slate explains (via Alex Wittenberg) that Mine Furor chose Portland for his first rollout of federal troops precisely because Portland’s own police already had been savaging protesters.