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DHS says it won’t make officials available for questioning in House probe of Portland protests

The Department of Homeland Security has said it will not agree to a congressional panel’s request to interview official witnesses as part of an investigation of the department’s response to protests in Portland, Ore. The congressional investigation has been fueled by allegations from a top DHS official, who has accused the White House of trying to skew intelligence reports to match President Trump’s claims that far-left extremist groups are behind nationwide protests against police violence.

The House Intelligence Committee’s request to interview several DHS officials “will not be accommodated at this time,” Assistant Secretary Beth Spivey wrote to the committee chairman Monday, arguing that the committee had unreasonably broadened its scope after receiving a whistleblower complaintfrom Brian Murphy, who until recently was in charge of the department’s intelligence office.

Murphy has alleged that senior DHS officials, acting on orders from the White House, have tried to color intelligence reports in ways that favor Trump’s campaign rhetoric. Murphy claimed in a complaint filed last week with the DHS inspector general that the department’s acting secretary, Chad Wolf, instructed him in May to stop reporting Russian interference in the election and to focus his office’s efforts on China and Iran, two countries Democratic lawmakers briefed on intelligence say are not engaged in the same aggressive attempts to influence the elections as Russia. Continue reading.

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