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FBI and Secret Service agents deployed to handle $25 weed buys in DC [1]

['Ellsworth Toohey']

Date: 2025-08-27  

A man walking down a Washington D.C. street got stopped for carrying three ounces of marijuana — one ounce over the legal limit. Surrounding him weren't just local cops, but agents from five separate federal agencies, including the FBI and Secret Service, all for what amounts to a misdemeanor fine.

This is President Trump's "crime epidemic" crackdown in the nation's capital, where some of America's most elite law enforcement officers are being deployed to handle cases that wouldn't even make local news. The operation has deployed 2,500 personnel from 20 agencies—at enormous taxpayer expense—to do work local police were already handling.

A Reuters investigation of over 500 criminal cases since August 11 reveals the level of federal overkill in Washington D.C. Of 69 cases involving Trump's anti-crime task force, nearly half targeted minor offenses like public drinking and small-time marijuana possession. In one absurd example, DEA agents who normally hunt terrorists and major drug cartels helped with an undercover operation to buy $25 worth of pot.

While the White House claims to have removed over 1,000 "dangerous criminals," experts question the approach. Columbia Law School professor Jeffrey Fagan told Reuters: "What are these additional resources doing that local police were not doing before? Are they supplanting them? Are they freeing them to do more detailed investigations of homicides and more serious crimes? What's the value added? If they're doing stuff that people in the Metropolitan Police would've done anyway, then it's cosmetic."

Previously:

• The Good Liars hit Washington DC

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[1] Url: https://boingboing.net/2025/08/27/fbi-and-secret-service-agents-deployed-to-handle-25-weed-buys-in-dc.html

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