WTF?[W]hen the history of the Trump presidency is written, the clash at Lafayette Square may be remembered as one of its defining moments.
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After a weekend of protests that led all the way to his own front yard and forced him to briefly retreat to a bunker beneath the White House, President Trump arrived in the Oval Office on Monday agitated over the television images, annoyed that anyone would think he was hiding and eager for action.
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Mr. Trump was stirred up on Monday morning as he met with national security and law enforcement advisers to discuss what could be done about the street unrest. The advisers told him that he could not let the nation’s capital be overrun, that the symbolism was too important and that he had to get it under control that night.
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He wanted to send the military into American cities, an idea that provoked a heated, voices-raised fight among his advisers.
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Vice President Mike Pence favored the idea, reasoning that it would allow quicker action than calling up National Guard units, and he was backed by Mr. Esper. But Mr. Barr and General Milley warned against it.
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Several officials came away with different impressions of where Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, stood on the issue, but the discussion grew increasingly heated as voices were raised and tensions escalated. Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence then conducted a conference call with the nation’s governors in which the president berated them for being “weak” and “fools,” advising them to “dominate” the demonstrators. Mr. Esper talked about controlling “the battlespace.”
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The president rhapsodized about the crackdown in Minneapolis once the National Guard moved in. “It’s a beautiful thing to watch,” he said. “It just can’t be any better. There’s no experiment needed. You don’t have to do tests.”
Read: they didn't.[B]y the end of the day, urged on by his daughter Ivanka Trump, he came up with a more personal way of demonstrating toughness — he would march across Lafayette Square to a church damaged by fire the night before.
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Just before noon, an alert went out to every Washington-area agent with Homeland Security Investigations, a division of ICE, telling them to prepare to assist with any demonstration, according to an email labeled with a “high” severity. The F.B.I. deployed its elite hostage rescue team, highly armed and trained agents more accustomed to arresting dangerous suspects than dealing with riots. And ICE deployed its “special response teams” to protect agency facilities and be on call for more.
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By midafternoon on Monday, protesters had gathered again on H Street at the north side of Lafayette Square, this time peacefully. The Rev. Gini Gerbasi, the rector of St. John’s Church in Georgetown and a former assistant rector at St. John’s, arrived around 4 p.m. with cases of water for the demonstrators. Joining her on the church patio were about 20 clergy members who passed out snacks.
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“There were a few tense moments,” [Rev. Gerbasi] said. “But it was peaceful.”
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Inside the White House nearby, Mr. Trump was coming up with his plan to walk to the church. Several administration officials said it was his own idea; two officials said that Mr. Meadows credited [Ivanka] Trump during a senior staff meeting on Tuesday. It was crafted during an Oval Office meeting that included Ms. Trump; Mr. Meadows; Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser; and Hope Hicks, another top adviser.
At some point, Anthony Ornato, a Secret Service veteran who serves as deputy chief of staff for operations, was brought in to coordinate the logistics of the visit. Ms. Hicks came up with the visuals for how it would look. But officials privately conceded that little thought was given to what Mr. Trump would do once he actually got to the church.
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Reporters were told a statement would be coming, but the march to the church was kept a secret.
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At 5:07 p.m., National Guard trucks loaded with troops headed north on West Executive Avenue, a lane on the White House compound between the West Wing and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, and drove past the visitors entrance, out the gates and turned right onto Pennsylvania Avenue.
Shortly after, two members of the Secret Service counterassault team appeared on the roof of the West Wing with guns and binoculars, peering north toward Lafayette Square. While snipers are stationed on the main roof of the White House from time to time, they are not usually deployed on top of the West Wing, and the sight was jarring for regulars at the building.
The White House press corps was summoned to the Rose Garden at 6:03 p.m. Outside the gates and across Lafayette Square, some of the officers in riot gear kneeled down and some protesters initially thought they were expressing solidarity as the police have done in other cities, but in fact they were putting on their gas masks.
At 6:17 p.m., a large phalanx of officers wearing Secret Service uniforms began advancing on protesters, climbing or jumping over barriers at the edge of the square at H Street and Madison Place. Officials said later that the police warned protesters to disperse three times, but if they did, reporters on the scene as well as many demonstrators did not hear it.
Pence is no dummy. There would be no pictures of HIM in the fiasco. He might want to be president some day.Some form of chemical agent was fired at protesters, flash bang grenades went off and mounted police moved toward the crowds. “People were dropping to the ground” at the sound of bangs and pops that sounded like gunfire, Ms. Gerbasi said. “We started seeing and smelling tear gas, and people were running at us.”
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As he prepared for his surprise march to the church, Mr. Trump first went before cameras in the Rose Garden to declare himself “your president of law and order” but also “an ally of all peaceful protesters,” even as peaceful protesters just a block away and clergy members on the church patio were routed by smoke and flash grenades and some form of chemical spray deployed by shield-bearing riot officers and mounted police.
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[T]he president emerged from the White House, followed by a phalanx of aides and Secret Service agents as he made his way to the church, where he posed stern-faced, holding up a Bible that his daughter pulled out of her $1,540 MaxMara bag.
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The scene of mayhem — barely 1,000 feet from the symbol of American democracy — that preceded the walk evoked images more commonly associated with authoritarian countries, but that did not bother the president, who has long flirted with overseas strongmen and has expressed envy of their ability to dominate.
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By 6:30 p.m., [Rev. Gerbasi] said, “Suddenly the police were on the patio of St. John’s Church in a line, literally pushing and shoving people off of the patio.”
Julia Dominick, a seminarian with the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Va., and a former emergency room nurse, was tending to a hurt protester when a police line advanced.
“There was not a warning,” she said. “I’ve never been in a war. I’ve never been shot at. I’ve never been afraid in that way. Those sounds and the gas, it will be with me.” (No police agency acknowledged using tear gas, but reporters and protesters on the scene said there was clearly a chemical irritant of some kind.)
At 6:43 p.m., Mr. Trump made his statement in the Rose Garden, finishing seven minutes later, and then headed back through the White House to emerge on the north side and walk out the gates and into the park. Mr. Barr, Mr. Esper, General Milley, Mr. Meadows, Ms. Trump, Mr. Kushner and others followed him, but Mr. Pence and his staff hung back as the building emptied and watched on television instead.
Which, in itself, is a foolish move.The president’s movement surprised nearly everyone, as he intended, including law enforcement. The Washington police chief said he was notified only moments beforehand. Park Police commanders on the scene were as surprised as everyone else to see the president in the park.
To review the troops! What? Were they playing war? And didn't we learn a bit earlier that Esper was backing Trump's idea of calling up active duty military personnel and "controlling the battlespace"? It went badly, so he decided he actually didn't know anything about it?When he reached St. John’s, Mr. Trump made no pretense of any intent other than posing for photographs — he held up the Bible carried by his daughter, then gathered a few top advisers next to him in a line. He made no remarks and then, having accomplished his purpose, headed back to the White House, passing in front of a wall with new graffiti saying, “Fuck Trump.”
The police and other forces pursued demonstrators around the capital the rest of the evening, with military helicopters even swooping low overhead in what were called shows of force. Mr. Barr and General Milley at different points roamed the streets.
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By Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump boasted of success. “D.C. had no problems last night,” he wrote on Twitter. “Many arrests. Great job done by all. Overwhelming force. Domination. Likewise, Minneapolis was great (thank you President Trump!).”
By Tuesday afternoon, the crowds were back and even bigger.
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Mr. Trump and his inner circle considered it a triumph that would resonate with many middle Americans turned off by scenes of urban riots and looting that have accompanied nonviolent protests of the police killing of a subdued black man in Minneapolis.
But critics, including some fellow Republicans, were aghast at the use of force against Americans who posed no visible threat at the time, all to facilitate what they deemed a ham-handed photo opportunity featuring all white faces.
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Arlington County in suburban Virginia withdrew its police from those assembled to guard the White House and other federal sites after the Lafayette Square clash. Even beforehand, Democratic governors in Virginia, New York and Delaware refused to send National Guard troops requested by the Trump administration.
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Mayor Muriel E. Bowser of Washington sharply objected on Tuesday and said the federal government had even privately broached the idea of taking over the city’s police force, which she pledged to resist. “I don’t think the military should be used in the streets of American cities against Americans,” she said, “and I definitely don’t think it should be done for a show.”
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The spectacle staged by the White House also left military leaders struggling to explain themselves in response to criticism from retired officers that they had allowed themselves to be used as political props. Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, put out word through military officials that they did not know in advance about the dispersal of the protesters or about the president’s planned photo op, insisting that they thought they were accompanying him to review the troops.
Stick around. I'm sure the president can work one up for you.By Tuesday afternoon, demonstrators had returned to the edge of Lafayette Square — where new tall fences had been erected overnight — and shouted their discontent at the line of black-clad officers.
“Take off the riot gear, I don’t see no riot here,” they chanted.
She's a big help. Clearly, the president doesn't know jack shit.Aides on Tuesday defended Mr. Trump’s walk to the church, given that a small fire had been set in its basement during demonstrations over the weekend. “The president very much felt when he saw those images on Sunday night — that crossed a terrible line, that goes way beyond peaceful protesting,” Kellyanne Conway, his counselor, told reporters.
But she distanced him from the decisions on how to disperse the crowd. “Clearly, the president doesn’t know how law enforcement is handling his movement,” she said.
The Secretary of Defense, and he didn't know where he was going. Pathetic.Defense Secretary Mark Esper says he was given no notice before President Donald Trump led him and other senior administration officials to St. John's Episcopal Church for a widely criticized photo opportunity.
"I thought I was going to do two things: to see some damage and to talk to the troops," Esper said Tuesday night in an exclusive interview with NBC News.
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"I wanted to go out and thank these young men and women," Esper said.
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Esper said he believed they were going to observe the vandalized bathroom in Lafayette Square, which is near the church.
"I didn't know where I was going," Esper said. "I wanted to see how much damage actually happened."
NBC
Also, for this interview, he'll be getting his pink slip.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
I didn't notice you WERE defending us, Ron.
Just what he intended, I'm sure.
UPDATE:
UPDATE June 4:
That would sit better coming from someone other than Trump toadies.
UPDATE 6/5: A "mistake"
UPDATE 9/9: THIS is what it was all about:
New first verse: Jesus wept.
Despicable.
P.S. Whoever said "Next he's going to claim to have written" the Bible wasn't wrong.
UPDATE 6/1/21:
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