The letter also asks “why they were instructed not to disclose what agency they were from.”
Barr defended the decision to deploy SORT teams on the streets of D.C., saying that they are among the federal units best trained to deal with civil unrest. SORT teams are highly trained units that typically focus on handling emergency situations and potential violence in prisons, including quelling riots, thwarting escapes and conducting cell extractions.
Barr defends use of non-identified officers in D.C. as Democrats demand answers
Democrats have called for a special prosecutor to look into Attorney General William Barr’s handling of law enforcement’s attack on protesters.
The Story Behind Bill Barr’s Unmarked Federal Agents
The motley assortment of police currently occupying Washington, D.C., is a window into the vast, complicated, obscure world of federal law enforcement.
www.politico.com
There are more gun-carrying agents employed across the federal government by inspectors general—the quasi-independent watchdogs responsible for rooting out fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars—than there are ATF agents nationwide; the roughly 4,000 inspector general agents nationwide, in fact, is roughly equivalent to the entire size of the DEA. The Department of Veterans Affairs’ police department, who guard the nation’s veteran hospitals, facilities and cemeteries, is larger than the entire U.S. Marshals Service.
Beyond those 132,000 federal civilian law enforcement, the U.S. has tens of thousands of military law enforcement officers, including military police units and investigators like the 2,000 agents of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, the 1,200 agents of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service or the 900 agents of the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. Plus, the 40,000 armed personnel of the U.S. Coast Guard, which has broad law enforcement powers on the nation’s rivers, lakes and oceans, but is counted as part of the military.
Then there are the officers who can be spotted across Northern Virginia in white marked patrol vehicles labeled only as “United States Police,” the purposefully vague public name given to what is formally known as the CIA’s Security Protective Services, who provide security to the CIA and the Office of Director of National Intelligence. They carry weapons, but have limited law enforcement authority. (As one agent told me, only half-joking, “We can’t arrest you, but we can kill you.”)
