What the heck are federal law enforcement officers doing in Portland?

Question 4: How come none of these federal officers have to identify themselves?

As Rachel Brown and Coleman Saunders explained on Lawfare last month, there’s no general requirement under federal law that federal law enforcement officers disclose either their identity or the identity of their employer. (One of the many reforms that seems worth pursuing in response to recent events is to consider whether there are circumstances in which federal law should require identification.) The messier question is whether Oregon law requires them to do so. As noted above, the Oregon statute that authorizes federal law enforcement officers to enforce Oregon law requires the officer to identify their authority and their reason for making the arrest. It does not seem like a stretch to interpret that provision to require an officer to at least identify themselves (1) as a federal law enforcement officer; if not (2) as an employee of a specific federal agency with law enforcement authority. That doesn’t mean that these officers must wear uniforms or drive marked vehicles, but it shouldn’t be remotely controversial to require federal officers, when making arrests, to make it clear to those whom they are arresting why they have the legal authority to do so.

Question 5: Is the Department of Homeland Security in charge? If so, why?

By all accounts, the federal law enforcement response in D.C. last month was coordinated by, and run through, Attorney General Barr and the Department of Justice. Here, in contrast, the response seems to be under the control of Acting Secretary Wolf. If so, it’s unclear why that would be the case, given that most of the authorities the attorney general identified in June are authorities he possesses in his capacity as attorney general. True, there are a number of law enforcement agencies in the Department of Homeland Security, but only a handful of them seem to be relevant to the situation in Portland (again, perhaps including Customs and Border Protection). And insofar as the hook for much of this response is the protection of Portland’s federal courthouses, that’s the bailiwick of the U.S. Marshal’s Service—an arm of the Department of Justice.