A senior official with the Department of Homeland Security has been ousted amid allegations he was gathering "intelligence reports" on reporters and protesters amid the Portland, Oregon, riots.
DHS acting Undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis Brian Murphy has been reassigned to a new role, three sources told The Washington Post.
The decision came Friday from acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf, one source told the Post.
The DHS Intelligence & Analysis Office (I&A) compiled Open Source Intelligence Reports on two journalists who leaked DHS documents and were surveilling communications of Portland protesters, the Post reported Thursday.
Wolf had then ordered the intelligence collection to cease, per the Post.
Murphy, a former FBI agent, had also been asked in a letter from Democrat senators to confirm where he was collecting intelligence from the electronic devices or accounts of protesters.
Sources told the Post, Murphy has brought FBI or CIA-like surveillance to the DHS's I&A, which is potentially an abuse of power, particularly with regard to spying on U.S. citizens.
Murphy had written in an internal DHS memo the label of "violent opportunists" would be changed to "violent Antifa anarchists inspired," according to the Post.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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