Officials familiar with Lafayette Square confrontation challenge Trump administration claim
Source: The Washington Post
During the nearly two weeks since authorities charged at peaceful protesters to push them from D.C. streets about 30 minutes before President Trump walked through the area for a photo op his aides, the attorney general and federal law enforcement officials have sought to shield the president from political fallout with a simple defense: one scene, they say, had nothing to do with the other.
The notion that the street-clearing offensive around Lafayette Square was already planned, and separate from Trumps decision to visit a nearby church, has emerged as the administrations central explanation for scenes of federal officers shoving protesters with shields and firing pepper balls, chemical grenades and smoke bombs at retreating crowds on June 1.
This was not an operation to respond to that particular crowd. It was an operation to move the perimeter one block, Attorney General William P. Barr told CBS News last week.
However, the accounts of more than a half-dozen officials from federal law enforcement, D.C. public safety agencies and the National Guard who were familiar with planning for protests outside the White House that day challenge that explanation. The officials told The Washington Post they had no warning that U.S. Park Police, the agency that commanded the operation, planned to move the perimeter and protesters before a 7 p.m. citywide curfew, or that force would be used.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/officials-challenge-trump-administration-claim-of-what-drove-aggressive-expulsion-of-lafayette-square-protesters/2020/06/14/f2177e1e-acd4-11ea-a9d9-a81c1a491c52_story.html
Full title that did not fit: Officials familiar with Lafayette Square confrontation challenge Trump administration claim of what drove aggressive expulsion of protesters
scarytomcat
(1,706 posts)the peaceful protesters would have moved back. If asked. Could have just started moving the barriers slowly down the block. He wanted to show his strength but he committed a crime instead.
IllinoisBirdWatcher
(2,315 posts)riversedge
(70,283 posts)Marcuse
(7,505 posts)I moved on them like a bitch. Like a hot knife through butter.
obamanut2012
(26,111 posts)ProfessorGAC
(65,150 posts)Easy excuse, but absent any explanation why it was thought necessary to move the perimeter suggests it's a lie.