Grand Theft America / Receipt power-2026-06-11-092
The Justice Department sues Virginia over its mask ban for federal officers
The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the Commonwealth of Virginia, its attorney general Jay Jones and the Commonwealth Attorney for Fairfax, Steve Descano, challenging a state law that criminally prohibits federal officers from wearing masks, requires individual identifiers and, the department says, functionally bans cooperative 287(g) agreements with local law enforcement.
What happened
The release identifies the challenged provisions as Virginia Code sections 19.2-83.6:1 and 15.2-1726.1. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said Virginia's anti-law-enforcement policies regulate the federal government and are designed to create risk for federal agents, and that the laws cannot stand. Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said Governor Spanberger cannot tell federal officers how to do their job. The department says Blanche has instructed the Civil Division to identify state and local laws, policies and practices that facilitate violations of federal laws or impede lawful federal operations, and that the suit is the latest in a series brought by the Civil Division against such policies, including in Virginia, New Jersey and California.
Why it matters
The suit contests a state's authority to set conditions on how federal agents operate inside its borders, and the department describes it as one step in a standing programme to find and challenge such state laws rather than a response to a single statute. The department's own release says the Civil Division has been instructed to identify state and local laws that impede lawful federal operations.
Receipt details
- Phase 2
- Turn law enforcement inward
- Coerce states and localities
