A new dark-money group is spending six figures to flood bus stops in the District of Columbia with posters that ask masked federal agents patrolling the city’s streets, “Why are you hiding your face?”
The group, Home of the Brave, has also recruited some well-known figures from the Trump resistance movement, including Harry Dunn, a former U.S. Capitol Police officer who defended his workplace from rioters on Jan. 6, 2021.
As Trump’s federal takeover of Washington continues, Home of the Brave is hoping to target its messaging toward the people living with the reality of a near-constant federal police presence.
“We cannot normalize this. This is not OK. This is not how policing should look,” Dunn told NOTUS, adding that masks inhibit good police work. “People are afraid of cops because they don’t trust them, because they’re not held accountable in the public’s eyes.”
The Trump administration has denied any secrecy around some of these operations, but agents have been documented repeatedly using tactics like helping with traffic stops using unmarked vehicles and refusing to answer questions about which agency they are working for.
Still, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson acknowledged that “a lot” of members of Enforcement and Removal Operations and Homeland Security Investigations “are working undercover.”
Dunn said he’s not measuring the success of the campaign through policy changes or legislative wins. He said he thinks it’s worthwhile to remind the city’s residents, too, not to grow accustomed to the presence of masked and armed police as the takeover continues.
The campaign launched last week, but it gained more visibility when it expanded to more than 100 bus stops on Wednesday. It also launched mobile digital billboards around the city’s streets, which display videos of masked federal agents alongside calls for them to take their masks off.
Despite its focus on transparency, Home of the Brave did not give NOTUS details of its funding sources, and as a 501(c)(4), it is not required to disclose its donors.
“Home of the Brave is supported by donations from people across the country who share our alarm at how much the Trump administration’s actions are hurting ordinary Americans,” a spokesperson for the group told NOTUS in a statement. “Our funding goes toward amplifying these people’s voices and educating the public about the damage that is being done. This DC campaign is just the first of many to come.”
Other members of the group are also household names in politics, including former Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock, political commentator George Conway, as well as Sarah Longwell, the publisher of the conservative and anti-Trump news and opinion website The Bulwark.
Former FBI agent Michael Feinberg also recently joined the group. He resigned earlier this year from his senior management post at the FBI after he said he faced a demotion over a “private friendship” he had with someone namechecked in Director Kash Patel’s book as a member of the “deep state.”
Feinberg said he hoped the campaign would remind residents that masked federal agents are a novel problem posed by Trump — and not one to grow accustomed to seeing.
“You can be tough on crime, you can be pro-law enforcement, yet at the same time, try and uphold the norms that have always sort of guided us according to the rule of law,” Feinberg said.
He said the masking of agents as part of the city’s takeover is just one visible symptom of Trump’s growing executive overreach.
That’s why, he said, despite his lack of political or activism experience, he felt compelled to lend his law enforcement chops to the organization’s board, which is peppered with some of Trump’s loudest critics, both conservative and liberal.
“We don’t all have a ton in common in terms of our background or ideologies or beliefs, but this is something that is really uniting all of us,” Feinberg said. “It’s hard for me to think of any overreach that is more threatening than that carried out by individuals who have the authority to use violence on behalf of the state.”