Trump is an authoritarian dictator at heart. I’m old enough to remember the Nixon presidency. When there were noisy demonstrations outside the White House, Nixon would turn on a football game to drown out the chanting of the demonstrators and order a drink.
BY JONATHAN EASLEY AND ZACK BUDRYK
Military personnel in Washington, D.C., at least some of whom were not wearing identifiers, extended the perimeter around the White House on Wednesday, blocking off access to LaFayette Square Park, where police clashed with protesters earlier this week.
A police force lined up near the corner of 16th Street and I Street, standing face to face with about 200 demonstrators in 90 degree heat in the middle of the afternoon. Businesses and shops in the vicinity boarded up their windows to prevent looting and vandalism.
The law enforcement personnel viewed by The Hill did not wear any identifiers. They were dressed in mixed riot gear, with helmets and face masks, shields and guns loaded with crowd control agents.
Thaddeus Hoffmeister, a law professor at the University of Dayton, said Armed Forces personnel are generally required to wear identifiers.
"As a general rule, members of the Army (Active Duty, National Guard, and Reserves) must wear an identifiable uniform,” Hoffmeister said. “The folks you see without an identifiable uniform are primarily federal law enforcement who don't have the same requirements."
My own guess is that many of the unidentified officers are from Bureau of Prisons. And they want to avoid the connotation of Washington as a prison.