Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson is deploying 3,000 employees and other law enforcement personnel to Cleveland and Philadelphia to protect attendees of the two major political parties’ conventions.
Johnson on Thursday told a House Homeland Security subcommittee that he personally is heading to the Republican National Convention in Ohio next week.
In the wake of last week’s sniper attack on Dallas police, members of Congress said they are now concerned about the security of the police assigned to protect convention-goers.
Johnson testified that he is deploying 3,000 Homeland Security Department personnel to the conventions, and that part of their job will be to keep themselves and their law enforcement colleagues safe.
“I am concerned about the prospect of demonstrations getting out of hand,” Johnson testified. “I am concerned about the possibility of violence.”
The personnel include members of the Secret Service, the Transportation Security Administration and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Johnson said. He said there will also be at least another 1,000 local and federal government personnel, such as National Guardsmen, on hand.
“I think we have to be concerned about things getting out of hand, very definitely, but there will be a lot of security and lot of preparation in place,” Johnson said.
FBI Director James Comey said the FBI is also closely watching the political conventions.
“It’s a threat we’re watching very, very carefully,” he testified Thursday. “It’s the reason we have hundreds of people focused on intelligence and deployed to Cleveland. I don’t want to talk about particular groups here, but there is a concern anytime there’s an event like this that people from across a spectrum of radical groups will be attracted to it. So we’re watching it very, very carefully.”
