The Washington Post has now confirmed from two sources that Trump Attorney General William Barr personally ordered the violent clearing of Lafayette Square and St. John's Church in the minutes before Trump walked to the church to hold up a Bible.
Barr personally gave the order to clear the park immediately for Trump's "walk," resulting in local, federal, and military police attacking the peacefully gathered protesters and the St. John's Church reverend, on church property for Trump's speech.
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Even the justification is horrific. The claim, according to the Post's sources, was that the no-protest "perimeter" around the White House was supposed to be extended by one block, but that when Barr arrived on the scene for Trump's speech he found the planned perimeter was not in place.
So: "This needs to be done. Get it done," Barr ordered, according to the Post's Justice Department source.
If anything, that makes Barr's order worse and confirms, as a certainty, that the attack was indeed coordinated to allow Trump's planned photo op, the one he announced as the last line of his turgid Rose Garden speech. When the attorney general found that the assembled crowd was in Trump's way, rather than cancelling the planned stunt, Barr instead ordered an attack on the crowd so that the stunt could go forward.
That result, widely documented by perhaps a hundred on-scene cameras, shows the assembled officers and troops firing flash-bang grenades, gas canisters, advancing on the crowd with riot gear and on horseback, sending them fleeing from the park and from church property.
William Barr is—remains—a traitor to this nation. He gave an order to attack Americans so that the now-invalid "president" could hold up a Bible where the protesters were peacefully standing. He has betrayed his oath and country and must be immediately be removed from his position by Congress. He should be treated as a criminal. As, in fact, one of the "domestic terrorists" he now claims were impeding his ability to commandeer a place of worship for a cheap stunt, even if it required an act of violence to do it.