Attorney General Bill Barr is still trying to desperately clean up the public relations mess created when federal law enforcement violently cleared the area in front of the White House last week prior to President Donald Trump’s trip across the street. But in trying to tamp down the blowback these acts sparked, Barr — apparently inadvertently — undermined Trump’s transparently silly excuse for his recent trip to the White House bunker.
Critics have slammed the administration, and Trump and Barr in particular, for the plan that included officials assaulting, teargassing, and otherwise accosting the protesters who were participating in First Amendment freedoms in Lafayette Square. Journalists on the scene also came under that assault and reported that it came without warning or provocation.
The administration has tried to push back on this narrative, claiming the protesters were warned, that at least some were throwing objects at police, and that “tear gas” wasn’t used (even though pepper bombs — which release an irritating and tear-inducing gaseous compound — were indisputably used, and evidence indicates other forms of tear gas were employed.) But no compelling evidence supports these accounts, and the reporters who were there tell a different story. Continue reading.