Legion Troll
A fine upstanding poster
Trump’s rally began with the candidate asking all attendees to raise their hands and take an oath to him, while extended barriers cordoned off the press and plainclothes private intelligence officers scoured the crowd for protestors.
These new tactics, which the Trump campaign has introduced over the past week, represent refinements by Trump and his staff in their quest to control the atmosphere and message of his often unruly rallies.
They come in the wake of an altercation between a photographer and a Secret Service agent at a Trump event, and at a time when the emboldened candidate has escalated confrontations with protesters, leaving his podium to stare them down at his two most recent rallies and repeatedly lamenting that his supporters cannot retaliate against them.
Trump first asked his supporters to pledge their allegiance at a weekend rally in Orlando. The length of Saturday’s oath made it difficult for attendees to repeat it after Trump. The candidate had adjusted by Monday, when he had supporters raise their right hands and repeat a shorter oath.
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign appears to be ramping up efforts to prevent displays of dissent. Before the start of the rally, they began assisting in the preemptive removal of potential dissenters.
Trump continued to taunt protesters and lament the fact that he and his supporters could not retaliate against them. “Bye-bye,” Trump told one protester after strolling away from his podium to stare the demonstrator down.
Trump’s campaign spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, did not respond to questions about the role of the plainclothes guards and the new tactics employed at his rallies.
Trump has said that protesters were throwing punches and lamented that his supporters would be blamed for retaliating.
A reporter who witnessed protests did not observe demonstrators throwing punches. Multiple witnesses also reported that they did not observe the protesters throwing punches. At the Nevada rally, security guards at South Point Arena in Las Vegas confirmed that protesters had not thrown punches, despite Trump’s claim.
A spokeswoman for the campaign has not responded to requests for video that might validate the candidate’s claims.
Trump’s aides -- and more recently Secret Service agents – have long worked to prevent members of the media from exiting press pens to document protests and scuffles while Trump speaks.
The use of the restrictive press pen design comes after a Secret Service agent was caught on video choke-slamming a photographer for Time Magazine at a rally. The photographer, Christopher Morris, had been attempting to leave the pen to document a Black Lives Matter protest.
A representative of the Secret Service, Martin Mulholland, said the agency’s sole concern is protection and it does not instruct agents to restrict the movements of press. He pointed to a statement released by the agency last week that says, “The Secret Service only intervenes if an individual or group poses a security threat to a protectee or interferes with any law enforcement activity.”
Mulholland said the agency had investigated reports of agents restricting press movements at Trump rallies but had been unable to verify them.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/donald-trump-rally-protester-crack-down-220407
