Here's the thing: Sometimes things are not ominous until they're done by untrustworthy people. This wouldn't be much of a story (except to Breitbart) if the Obama administration ordered it, since we knew them to be rational sorts. These teams of unidentified men without name badges, ordered up by Bill Barr? Not so much. Via Defense One:
The presence of unmarked federal law enforcement officers, dressed in paramilitary uniforms and wearing no identifying insignia, quickly spread among protesters marching through Washington, D.C.’s streets on Tuesday and Wednesday, causing concerned protesters and officials to ask: Who are they?
In some locations, security personnel refused to identify themselves to journalists and protesters who asked which agency sent them, answering only that they worked for the federal government. In other places, they identified themselves as working for the Department of Justice. Some carried rifles, or were equipped with body armor, riot shields, and pepper spray canisters.
Two such clad security members in Washington on Tuesday night identified themselves to Defense One as part of a specialized emergency response force run by the Bureau of Prisons — part of the Justice Department — to help maintain security at correctional facilities. They and others are part of what’s known as the bureau’s Special Operations Response Teams, or SORTs. NPR reported on Monday that Attorney General Bill Barr had ordered BOP to send its specialized riot response teams to assist with the local D.C. law enforcement with the civil unrest that has engulfed downtown Washington this week.
And of course some of them are from Border Patrol, Trump's favorite thugs.
from a friend in dc: bunch of armed guys by the white house w/ no body cams and no badge numbers. wont tell anyone who they are or who they work for. pic.twitter.com/yC4aXmE9Jd
— luke (@luketaylorgo) June 4, 2020
No badges, no badge numbers, no identifying patches, no name tags, no uniform...it keeps getting worse. Even the Geneva convention stipulates that a soldier must wear a readily identifiable uniform. I guess US citizens don't get that consideration from their own law enforcement.
— Ian Hopkins (@ihoplad) June 2, 2020
