Several different law-enforcement agencies moved ahead of schedule and started engaging with protesters before the protesters had been sufficiently warned. The report determined that the decision to clear the protesters was justified, but that law-enforcement agencies on the scene failed to effectively communicate with each other and failed to communicate warnings to the protesters about the impending crackdown. Wall Street Journal (September 2020): William Barr advocates hitting more protesters with federal charges - including sedition

The report documents Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, encouraging commanders shortly before the push to clear the protesters because of Trump, but being dismissed.įrom the archives (June 2020): Attorney General Barr is seeking to rewrite the narrative surrounding Trump’s controversial photo-op Park Police officials had already planned to clear the area and “had begun implementing the operational plan several hours before they knew of a potential Presidential visit to the park,” Inspector General Mark Lee Greenblatt, a Trump appointee to the post in August 2019, said in a statement accompanying the report. A half-hour after the Washington protesters were forced from the area with pepper pellets and flash-bangs, Trump walked across Lafayette Park amid the lingering scent of pepper spray and delivered a short speech while holding a Bible in front of St. The demonstrators were protesting the death of George Floyd, who died after a then-Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck and pinned him to the ground for about 9½ minutes. Plus: How a June afternoon in Lafayette Square could join Charlottesville and Helsinki as moments that define the Trump legacy Park Police more typically facilitate - rather than break up - protests and marches in Washington, D.C.Īlso from June 2020: Violent clearing of Lafayette Square and a frustrated president’s controversial photo-op - how one of Trump’s most consequential days in the White House came about

Lafayette square video