Feds plan ‘full investigation’ into Portland police after arrest of conservative journalist
The U.S. Department of Justice says it will launch a widescale probe of the Portland Police Bureau following the arrest of a conservative online journalist and influencer Thursday.
The first news of the “full investigation” came not from official sources, however, but was blasted out on social media by the independent journalist, Nicholas Sortor, just hours after he was released from the downtown Portland jail.
In an email, DOJ spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre said Sortor’s statement was “confirmed” but provided no other details.
Around 7:30 a.m., Sortor posted on X that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi had personally called him to deliver news of the investigation.
Speaking to the media later Friday morning, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called the arrest “extremely troubling,” claiming that Sortor was “ambushed by antifa and was defending himself.”
Sortor said the investigation will be led by Harmeet K. Dhillon, who is serving as assistant attorney general for civil rights, and in earlier years represented Andy Ngo, editor-at-large at The Post Millennial, in civil litigation.
On social media, Dhillon posted a letter addressed to the city attorney and Police Chief Bob Day, warning the city may be using its policing powers to engage in “viewpoint discrimination.”
The letter cited as evidence the arrest of Sortor, the lack of the arrest of a suspect in the assault reported by Post Millennial reporter Katie Daviscourt at a Tuesday protest, as well as recent moves by the City Council finding the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in breach of its land-use permit.
“We have not reached any conclusions on these allegations,” the letter says, asking the city to turn over body-worn camera footage and other documents.
Dhillon posted another message on social media, saying that it was “FO time,” perhaps a reference to the “finding out” phase in a popular vulgar idiom.
Sortor’s message didn’t mince words either.
“Hey @PortlandPolice: you made a big freaking mistake. You PROVED what we’ve all been saying for years: you’re CORRUPT and CONTROLLED by violent Antifa thugs who terrorize the streets,” Sortor wrote online. “The Trump DOJ WILL NOT allow Portland Police to continue to do the bidding of Antifa.”
Sortor, a 27-year-old resident of Washington, D.C., was taken into custody Thursday night on suspicion of second-degree disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor, by Portland police officers.
Claims of the bureau’s alleged allegiance to antifa may come as a surprise to Portlanders, given that 2020’s protests usually devolved into pitched confrontations between local officers and black-clad crowds. The Police Bureau filed 6,000 use of force reports alone during protests that year, and arrested nearly 1,000 left-wing protesters.
The question of who qualifies as a journalist is often hotly debated, as the traditional norms of the profession are not always followed by influencers who publish directly onto the internet. The First Amendment broadly protects using a camera to document public activity under existing press freedoms.
Portland police are already operating under a 2014 settlement with the Department of Justice, stemming from an investigation into disproportionate use of force against people with mental illness.
Details of the allegations against Sortor remain murky.
Videos show the 27-year-old wearing a grey hoody and standing still as he was handcuffed behind his back and led away by officers with the bureau’s bike squad. He was booked by midnight and released without conditions sometime before 6 a.m.
Bill Melugin, a Fox News correspondent embedded in Portland, wrote that he spoke with Sortor shortly after his release and reported that Sortor was filming federal agents as they deployed chemical spray on protesters when he was swarmed by protesters and thrown into a flower bed.
“Someone threw a punch,” Melguin wrote. “Nick says he swung back and missed, then disengaged and walked over to a group of Portland PD.”
Other videos showed Sortor grabbing a burning American flag from a protester and extinguishing the fire.
Sortor made pugilistic remarks after covering a protest on Wednesday: “If I defend myself, *I* will be the one who gets arrested. Not the assailant. Antifa is in full control out here. President Trump NEEDS to step in”
Sortor is set to be arraigned on the charge Monday. In prior years, many protesters who were arrested saw their cases dropped shortly after their arrest, though Multnomah County District Attorney Nathan Vasquez vowed to take a sterner tact when he took office this year.
Pat Dooris, a spokesperson for the DA, said only that the case was still “under review.”
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson was attending a federal court hearing regarding the looming deployment of 200 federalized troops to the city and wasn’t immediately available for comment.
A spokesperson said the mayor has “full faith in the Portland Police Bureau’s commitment to protecting public safety, upholding the rights of all individuals to lawfully assemble, and impartially enforcing the law.”
Mike Benner, a police spokesperson, acknowledged that officers had arrested a person with “a significant social media presence, as well as others representing a range of political viewpoints.”
“As with all such situations, arrests are based on observed behavior and probable cause — not political affiliation or public profile,” he said.