Oregon Governor’s Chief of Staff Who Joined Biden Transition Team Showed Support for Rioters

Newly-released emails from public records requests by the Portland Business Journal reveal that the Oregon governor’s former chief of staff who recently joined the Biden transition team showed support for violent Portland rioters.

“We all want the violence to end, but honestly, their point that violence against them has been going on for a very long period of time rings very true, and real actions to change that needs to happen,” wrote Gov. Kate Brown’s then-chief of staff Nik Blosser in an email exchange with Portland real estate businessman Jim Mark on Sept. 2.

Mark contacted the governor’s office to ask that they unequivocally condemn the violent riots and to take action to revive Portland’s dying businesses. In response, Blosser wrote: “I’d like to see your support for real change for people be as public as your concern about the property damage.”

But Mark fired back: “They have destroyed minority owned businesses while [the] government, other than the Mayor, have said nothing … This is not going to solve [the] equality issue, destroying the City of Portland. Very poor response and does not address the violence or destruction.”

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Blosser’s view that anti-police riots are legitimate have been echoed by other Democrat politicians both local and nationwide. Shortly before Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt took office in August, he told Willamette Week: “I think that when you look historically at this nation, it’s during these protests when we’ve gotten some of the changes that we are proudest of in our nation’s history. And sometimes it took some property damage.”

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