This week’s big leak about a major Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation was orchestrated by acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan in an effort to sabotage the raids before they were scheduled to take place, according to three current and two former senior administration officials.
In a move he said was to placate Democrats, President Trump announced on Saturday that the nationwide immigration enforcement operation planned to start Sunday — aimed at migrant families who illegally remain in the country despite being denied asylum — was called off to give lawmakers two weeks to work on a plan to fix legal “loopholes” he said have enticed migrants to come to the U.S.
However, all five officials who spoke with the Washington Examiner confirmed McAleenan’s decision to go rogue and stymie the operation was what prompted the White House to call off the 10-city operation.
The planned raids in cities such as Los Angeles, Miami and Houston, were first reported by the Washington Post on Friday.
The sources said only a small number of people in the White House, ICE, and DHS were even aware of the plan’s details, including which cities, the date and time, and who would be targeted.
Two officials said the acting secretary, who was promoted internally in April, had fought for months during closed-door discussions with White House officials, the former acting ICE Director Ronald Vitiello, and the new acting ICE Director Mark Morgan against the plan, which they noted was similar to one the Obama administration carried out in 2015.
“I know he has not approved of this operation for months,” one person familiar with those private conversations said during a phone call Saturday night. “The president wouldn’t leak that. ICE wouldn’t leak that. There’s only a few people involved in these discussions … The only one who could have shared the details of those operations were Kevin.”
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See Also:
(1) Multiple fingers pointing at alleged leaker of plans for ICE raids today
(2) Trump’s ‘Border Czar’ Accuses Acting DHS Secretary of ‘Resisting’ ICE
(3) Trump’s acting DHS secretary appears wary of the president’s ICE raids. That says a lot.
(4) California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom puts out a video for illegals on how to obstruct ICE
(5) Clapper Hears Barr’s ‘Chilling’ Footsteps
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. ”
Marcus Tullius Cicero