Air Force investigates military planes that monitored protesters

WASHINGTON — The Air Force inspector general is investigating whether the military improperly used a littleknown reconnaissance plane to monitor protests in Washington and Minneapolis this month, the Air Force said on Thursday.

The inquiry was apparently prompted by lawmakers who expressed concerns to Pentagon officials that the use of military surveillance airplanes may have violated the civil liberties of the mostly peaceful protesters demonstrating against the police killings of African Americans.

“Following discussions with the secretary of defense about shared concerns, the secretary of the Air Force is conducting an investigation into the use of Air National Guard RC-26 aircraft to support civil authorities during recent protest activity in U.S. cities,” Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the chief Air Force spokesman, said in response to questions from The New York Times.

In a statement, Ryder declined to address other questions, pending completion of the investigation led by Lt. Gen. Sami D. Said, the Air Force inspector general.

The Air Force’s action comes days after the Pentagon’s top intelligence policy official told Congress the nation’s military intelligence agencies did not spy on U.S. protesters during the wave of nationwide demonstrations.

In a letter last week to the House Intelligence Committee, Joseph D. Kernan, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security, said he had received no orders from the Trump administration to conduct such surveillance, and he underscored citizens’ constitutional right to protest peacefully.

Kernan reminded lawmakers of the role of Pentagon intelligence agencies to help defend against foreign interference in domestic political affairs.

The deployment of more than 5,000 National Guard members to the nation’s capital, and thousands more to cities across the country to help quell the civil unrest, has cast a harsh spotlight on the National Guard’s response to the protests.

Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper last week ordered a review of the National Guard’s response, and the new Air Force inquiry is expected to shed light on how and why the secretive RC-26 and some supporting ground units were deployed.

On the morning of June 2, hours after National Guard helicopters harassed crowds of protesters in Washington, National Guard officials informed their commanders the West Virginia Air National Guard had sent a RC-26B to help observe the protests with “FMV capabilities” — or full-motion video — according to a message seen by The New York Times.

According to one military official familiar with the situation, senior National Guard leaders in Washington could watch the footage recorded from the aircraft on their cellphones in real time.

This most likely meant that the RC-26B, a twin-engine aircraft outfitted for electronic surveillance, would circle overhead and beam footage to the FBI command center near the Chinatown area of Washington.