Trump’s Kinda Criminals

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I’ve been trying to find a reliable source with numbers of how many federal and state law enforcement officers were mobilized in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation and stand off. I think over time it must have been hundreds when you consider the FBI, Oregon State police and law enforcement personnel from numerous municipalities in Oregon. There’s plenty of numbers for what the whole thing cost – many millions of dollars. But I’m interested in the numbers of people. The Hammonds were going to jail for having committed repeated acts of arson. They were behind a stand off in which dozens or hundreds of law enforcement officers were repeatedly threatened with violence and toward the end had to very directly endanger their lives. To put it mildly, pardoning these men as upstanding symbols of American virtue shows a pretty clear indifference to law breaking and the safety of federal law enforcement agents if you’re a certain kind of person and if your crime is tied to right wing political extremism. If you know where I can find those numbers – the total number of law enforcement officers deployed – please drop me a line.

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