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IPFS News Link • Trump Administration

U.S. Marshals told to prepare to help protect monuments nationwide...

• Devlin Barrett and Matt Zapotosky

In an email, Marshals Assistant Director Andrew Smith wrote that the service "has been asked to immediately prepare to provide federal law enforcement support to protect national monuments (throughout the country)."

"This is a challenging assignment due to the breadth of possible targets for criminal activity," Smith wrote. He said the Marshals Incident Management Team would start a Joint Operations Center in Springfield, Va., to coordinate, and every deputy in the Special Operations Group would be made available to help as soon as Thursday. He also asked other districts and divisions to identify people they might be able to lend to the effort until July 8.

On Monday, protesters attempted to topple a statue of President Andrew Jackson in a park next to the White House, though police in riot gear intervened and stopped them. That night, Trump tweeted his dismay, and the next morning he wrote that he had "authorized the Federal Government to arrest anyone who vandalizes or destroys any monument, statue or other such Federal property in the U.S. with up to 10 years in prison, per the Veteran's Memorial Preservation Act, or such other laws that may be pertinent....."


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