The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general revealed the figure in a report released April 16.
A report released by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general on April 16 reveals that the department spent $12.3 million on “Operation Diligent Valor,” Donald Trump’s deployment of law enforcement personnel under DHS to Portland, Oregon, in the summer of 2020 in response to protests against police brutality.
Trump ordered the deployment over the protests of local officials after Fox News had spent weeks filling the airwaves with images that supported an exaggerated accounting of the extent of destruction in the city as protesters responded to the murder in May of George Floyd by a white policeman in Minneapolis. Fox figures allied with Trump claimed the city had been “destroyed by the mob” and was in “constant chaos.”
The response to the protest was a key reference for Trump in his failed reelection campaign. Continue reading.