President Donald Trump holds up a Bible in front of St John’s Episcopal Church after walking across Lafayette Park from the White House in Washington, DC on June 1, 2020.
Brendan Smialowski | AFP via Getty Images
The Interior Department’s watchdog on Tuesday claimed in a new report that police violently cleared protestors from a park outside the White House last June in order to “allow a contractor” to install new security fencing, and not to enable then-President Donald Trump to stage a widely criticized photo op while wielding a Bible.
But the watchdog’s report also faulted the U.S. Park Police for failing to give dispersal warnings to protestors that were loud enough for all of them to hear before the clearing of Lafayette Park began on June 1, 2020.
And the report specifically did not address claims of excessive force used against individual protestors and reporters by police, saying “those are the subject of separate inquiries as well as ongoing lawsuits.”
“The evidence we reviewed showed that the [U.S. Park Police] cleared the park to allow a contractor to safely install antiscale fencing in response to destruction of Federal property and injury to officers that occurred on May 30 and May 31,” wrote Mark Lee Greenblatt, the Interior Department’s inspector general.
“Moreover, the evidence established that relevant USPP officials had made those decisions and had begun implementing the operational plan several hours before they knew of a potential Presidential visit to the park, which occurred later that day,” Greenblatt wrote.
“As such, we determined that the evidence did not support a finding that the USPP cleared the park on June 1, 2020, so that then President Trump could enter the park.”
Protestors chant, “Hands up, Don’t Shoot” as smoke from tear gas lingers in the air. A large group of protestors lingered late at the perimeter (the square itself was closed off) of Lafayette Square to protest racism and President Trump in Washington, D.C. in the early morning hours of May 31, 2020. They were confronted by police officers who at various times fired tear gas, pepper spay pellets and used concussion grenades to control them.
Michael S. Williamson | The Washington Post | Getty Images
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