This obscure federal agency 'targeted people of Chinese and Middle Eastern descent' after going 'rogue': report

The top Republican on the Commerce Committee has released a blockbuster report on an obscure federal police unit.

The 39-page report focused on the Investigations and Threat Management Service (ITMS). The newspaper noted the ITMS "targeted people of Chinese and Middle Eastern descent."

The report said ITMS had gone rogue.

"Investigating threats against the Secretary of Commerce and the Department's assets without a clearly defined mission ultimately led to the mutation of the ITMS into a rogue, unaccountable police force across multiple presidential administrations," the investigation found.

There were also allegations of spying.

"The ITMS collaborated with agencies in the Intelligence Community to conduct counterintelligence operations, despite lacking any form of legal authorization to participate in these activities," the report also noted. "Poor management and weak oversight allowed the ITMS to operate outside the norms of the law enforcement community."

The report found racial profiling.

"Other whistleblowers confirmed this claim, suggesting that an audit of managerial systems revealed that many dismissed cases into Asian-American employees, including individuals of Chinese and Middle-Eastern descent, were even categorized as 'terrorism-related.' This practice meant that multiple employees of color likely experienced protracted administrative processes to clear their names of suspected wrongdoing," the report explained.

ITMS also, " targeted members of the general public––meaning U.S. citizens––as well."

The investigation was based on more than two dozen whistleblowers, The New York Timesreports.

"One whistle-blower who aided the investigation and was subsequently interviewed by The New York Times said that the focus on investigating dissenting social media comments was particularly frustrating because the unit did not follow up on threats made against census employees — including if commenters wrote on Facebook that they would shoot an enumerator if they came to their house, for example," the newspaper reported.