Since I published the piece below I’ve been getting back and forth on the efforts of the DC Metro police to get its story together in response to questions from various members of the DC city council. They’ve now released their official statement. It’s actually considerably worse than what I suspected.
According to the MPD they first got involved when they were contacted by the DC US Attorney’s Office, the one currently run by acting US Attorney Ed Martin, the election denier and Jan 6th lawyer. The US Attorney’s office told the MPD that there was a disturbance at the USIP offices and that some intruders were refusing to leave. They gave the MPD the contact information for the guy Trump says he has appointed to run it. That would be Kenneth Jackson. They got on the phone with Jackson and then forced the USIP staff to leave based on what the US Attorney’s office told them.
They play coy about exactly why the staff left.
MPD members went to the USIP building and contacted an individual who allowed MPD members inside of the building. Once inside of the building, the acting USIP President requested that all the unauthorized individuals inside of the building leave. Eventually, all the unauthorized individuals inside of the building complied with the acting USIP President’s request and left the building without further incident, and no arrests were made.”
As I said, they’re coy about just who made who do what. But that’s not really the point here. The police showed up and said they had to leave and they left. The real issues here is that the US Attorney or at least the US Attorney’s office contacted the MPD and told them that there was no legitimate dispute and they had to make the staff leave and they did.
One additional point here. According to the Times story and USIP staff, they contacted the MPD first. It seems possible that the DOGE and/or FBI people there saw this communication and reached out to Ed Martin to try to intervene. That part is my speculation. The MPD statement doesn’t say anything about it. But that seems like the most likely chain of events.
