Barr seeks to subdue D.C. protests by ‘flooding the zone’ with federal firepower

From an FBI command center in Washington’s Chinatown neighborhood, Attorney General William P. Barr has orchestrated a stunning show of force on the streets of the nation’s capital — a battalion of federal agents, troops and police designed to restore order, but one that critics say carries grim parallels to heavy-handed foreign regimes.

Barr was tapped by President Trump to direct the national response to protests and riots over police misconduct since the police-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The attorney general has focused much of his attention on the District, where unrest and arrests swelled over the weekend before a jarring clash Monday to clear peaceful protesters from outside the White House — an order Barr issued personally. By Tuesday night, as he sat in the FBI command center until nearly midnight, the city’s mood seemed to have calmed. Continue reading.