Portland becomes flashpoint

The unrest in Portland, Oregon, is taking on national political implications as President Donald Trump is defending the actions of federal authorities against protesters in the city.

Trump condemned the Portland protests and violence in "Democrat-run" cities on Sunday as his Republican administration prepared to intervene in urban centers that he said have lost control of demonstrations against racism and police brutality.

Oregon's governor and Portland's mayor, both Democrats, called the move an abuse of power by the federal government, and the state filed a lawsuit against the US agencies involved.

Federal law enforcement officers, using an executive order by Trump aimed at protecting American monuments, last week started cracking down on crowds gathering in Portland.

The federal offensive in the liberal city in the Pacific Northwest sparked criticism and legal challenges as videos surfaced of officers in camouflage without clear identification arresting protesters.

"The Radical Left Democrats, who totally control Biden, will destroy our Country as we know it. Unimaginably bad things would happen to America. Look at Portland, where the pols are just fine with 50 days of anarchy. We sent in help. Look at New York, Chicago, Philadelphia. NO!" Trump tweeted on Sunday.

"We are trying to help Portland, not hurt it. Their leadership has, for months, lost control of the anarchists and agitators. They are missing in action. We must protect Federal property, AND OUR PEOPLE."

In a letter Sunday, the Democratic chairs of three House committees called on the inspectors general for the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security to investigate the use of force by federal officers against protesters.

"The Attorney General of the United States does not have unfettered authority to direct thousands of federal law enforcement personnel to arrest and detain American citizens exercising their First Amendment rights," said the letter signed by Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, and representatives Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn Maloney of New York, chairs of the House Judiciary, and Oversight and Reform committees, respectively.

"The Acting Secretary appears to be relying on an ill-conceived executive order meant to protect historic statues and monuments as justification for arresting American citizens in the dead of night," the letter said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, and US Representative Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat, issued a statement on Saturday saying: "We live in a democracy, not a banana republic. We will not tolerate the use of Oregonians, Washingtonians — or any other Americans — as props in President Trump's political games. The House is committed to moving swiftly to curb these egregious abuses of power immediately."

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said Sunday that federal authorities were escalating the situation.

"Their presence here is actually leading to more violence and more vandalism," Wheeler said on CNN's State of the Union program. "And it's not helping the situation at all. They're not wanted here. We haven't asked them here. In fact, we want them to leave.

"What I want to do is raise awareness nationally," the mayor said. "This could happen in your city. And what we're seeing is a blatant abuse of police tactics by the federal government, by a Trump admin that's falling in the polls. This is a direct threat to our democracy."

Most states' political polls have Trump trailing Democratic candidate Joe Biden in the Nov 3 presidential election.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Sunday that Attorney General William Barr and Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf are working on measures to address the ongoing protests.

"You'll see something rolled out this week as we start to go in and make sure that the communities, whether it's Chicago or Portland, or Milwaukee, or someplace across the heartland of the country, we need to make sure our communities are safe," Meadows said on Fox's Sunday Morning Futures.

Last month, Trump threatened to send the US military to deter protests that started after the May 25 killing of George Floyd, a black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer.

Oregon's attorney general on Friday filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the US Marshals Service, and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), saying they had violated peoples' civil rights by seizing and detaining them without probable cause.

The American Civil Liberties Union is calling the situation in Portland a "constitutional crisis". It filed a lawsuit on Friday against DHS and the US Marshals Service.

A CBP spokeswoman said last week that agents had been deployed to Portland to support a new DHS unit charged with enforcing last month's executive order to protect federal monuments and buildings.

The state's lawsuit included a sworn declaration from resident Mark Pettibone, who in prior interviews said he had been detained by federal police after he was leaving a protest in downtown Portland.

"Without warning, men in green military fatigues and adorned with generic 'police' patches, jumped out of an unmarked minivan and approached me," he wrote of the July 15 incident.

Reuters contributed to this story.