Senators thought the idea of an abusive president with a secret police force was so absurd they allowed it — now they regret it
Rosenzweig, now a senior fellow at the R Street Institute, said the lack of permanent leadership has made it far more likely that those nominally in charge will either tacitly or explicitly give assent to abuses.
“This kind of misuse and abuse is particularly plausible in an agency like DHS, which is weakened by its lack of history, its lack of settled processes, and by the fact that that Trump has systematically denuded it of anybody with any authority to push back at him,” Rosenzweig said. “Trump has systematically [emasculated] anybody who gave him the least little bit of pushback, you know, even people who were totally on his side in terms of results they wanted to achieve.”
He also posited that the situation in Portland is “a particular product of the fact that Trump and [White House Senior Policy Adviser] Stephen Miller have converted DHS into this subservient entity that has no leadership that refuses to do their bidding”.
