The Nation reporter says DHS agents ‘upset’ at administration over ‘politicization of their office’

The Nation reporter Ken Klippenstein said Monday that intelligence agents at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are upset with the Trump administration for pressuring them to take measures that politicize the department. 

Klippenstein said intelligence agents at DHS were “really upset” they had to generate internal intelligence reports about journalists covering protests in Portland, Ore. He also said he has heard that more information about similar internal reports about activists will come out in the next few weeks. 

“They see this as a politicization of their office. That’s not to say that many of them aren’t conservative, but that they see this as counterproductive, not only on their mission but to the survival of DHS itself,” Klippenstein said in an interview with Hill.TV’s “Rising.” “When you have them doing stuff like this it angers Congress, it angers the public … so there’s a lot of resentment and unhappiness towards the administration which folks at DHS described as having pressured and forced them to do these things.”

The DHS said last week it will stop compiling intelligence reports on journalists covering protests in Portland and will open an internal investigation into the practice. 

The department’s announcement came after news coverage of the internal DHS reports about journalists.