More than a half-dozen officials from the National Guard, federal law enforcement and public safety agencies have challenged the Trump administration’s narrative that the clearing of peaceful protesters outside the White House earlier this month was unrelated to President Donald Trump’s subsequent walk to a nearby church for a photo-op, The Washington Post reported Sunday.
Their accounts come after Trump declared himself “your President of law and order” as the protesters just outside the White House gates were dispersed with gas, flash bangs and rubber bullets, after which he visited a nearby church. He remained at the boarded-up building, brandishing a Bible for the cameras, for only a matter of minutes before returning to the White House.
Following the episode, Attorney General William Barr told CBS News: “This was not an operation to respond to that particular crowd. It was an operation to move the perimeter one block.”
But officials told The Post they weren’t warned that US Park Police planned to push the perimeter or that force would be used.
“I never heard any plan, ever, that police or National Guard were going to push people out of Lafayette Square,” Gen. Joseph Lengyel, chief of the National Guard Bureau, told the Post.
And DC Police Chief Peter Newsham told the newspaper that while there was discussion about moving the perimeter away from the White House, a confirmed time was never set. He said he learned that force would be used to clear the protesters moments after learning Trump would be walking to St. John’s Episcopal Church.
A DC public safety official echoed that message, telling the newspaper it was as if the plan to move the perimeter was “hurried up” when Trump decided to walk to the church.
CNN previously reported that Barr had ordered authorities to clear the crowd of protesters that had gathered near the White House, according to a Justice Department official.
On June 1, just before 6:24 p.m., police broadcast their first warning for the crowd to distance. A CNN correspondent reporting from the rooftop of a nearby hotel heard three warnings broadcast over the next 10 minutes as authorities moved closer to the crowd.
At 6:35 p.m., authorities began charging the crowd in lockstep with their shields raised, some using their batons to strike the protesters as gas canisters were deployed.
Trump walked over to the church shortly after 7 p.m.
The US Secret Service issued a statement Saturday admitting that an agency employee used pepper spray on June 1 during efforts to secure Lafayette Square and clear protesters.
In a statement, the Secret Service noted it previously “released information stating the agency had concluded that no agency personnel used tear gas or capsicum spray during efforts to secure the area near Lafayette Park on Monday, June 1, based on the records and information available at the time. Since that time, the agency has learned that one agency employee used capsicum spray (i.e., pepper spray) during that effort.”
“The employee utilized oleoresin capsicum spray, or pepper spray, in response to an assaultive individual,” the agency said in the statement.
Trump’s walk to the church has drawn criticism from lawmakers and public figures, including former Defense Secretary James Mattis and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who apologized for appearing in the photo-op with Trump.
“As senior leaders, everything you do will be closely watched. And I am not immune. As many of you saw, the result of the photograph of me at Lafayette Square last week. That sparked a national debate about the role of the military in civil society,” Milley said in his pre-recorded speech released last week to a group of graduates from the National Defense University. “I should not have been there.”
The episode sparked a national outcry, including within Washington, DC, where Mayor Muriel Bowser denounced what she described as an attack against protesters.
