Trump celebrates his 'total exoneration' after report found cops cleared BLM protesters from Lafayette Square to install new security fencing and NOT so he could pose with a Bible outside church burned by rioters

• e-mail

Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday he had been 'Completely and Totally' exonerated when an Interior Department inspector general's report found that the U.S. Park Police had cleared protesters from in front of Lafayette Park to install fencing - and not so Trump could walk across it for his Bible photo-op.  

The report released Wednesday concludes that the protesters were cleared by U.S. Park Police last June 1 so that a contractor could get started installing new fencing after several nights of unrest in the area directly north of the White House.

Most in the media had pointed a finger at Trump, as the clearing of the protesters happened as he was giving a Rose Garden speech about 'law and order' - a splitscreen moment -  directly before he made the Lafayette Park march. 

The demonstrators were protesting the death of George Floyd, who died after Derek Chauvin police officer knelt on his neck and pinned him to the ground for about 9 1/2 minutes. 

A half-hour after the protesters were forced from the area with pepper balls 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. John's Church.

An internal investigation has determined that the decision to forcibly clear racial justice protesters from an area in front of the White House last summer was not influenced by then-President Donald Trump's plan to stage a photo opportunity at that spot 

Police are seen moving demonstrators away from St. John's Church across from Lafayette Park on June 1 

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 said in a statement accompanying the report. 

'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.'

The report echoed one of the White House's justifications at the time. 

'In the morning, [Attorney General Bill] Barr had determined that we needed to expand the perimeter by one block on each side,' White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said at a June 3 press briefing. 'He was surprised, AG Barr, when he arrived at the White House to see that the perimeter had not been moved.'

McEnany said Barr told the U.S. Park Police officers and other law enforcement 'that we needed to get going' on moving the perimeter, an order she said Barr gave in the 'late afternoon.'  

McEnany had also said law enforcement responded because there was an uptick in unrest.

The report said that by the early evening 'violence directed toward law enforcement increased as the crowd size grew.'  

'According to USPP radio logs, intelligence reports, photographs, and videos, protesters breached the bike-rack fencing and entered the secured area, climbed on top of the burned-out comfo1i station, and threw projectiles like rocks, water bottles, and eggs at law enforcement officers,' the report said. 

The Interior Department's IG office did not interview Barr, White House personnel, Secret Service agents or officers from other responding police departments, the new report said - as it focused solely on the behavior of U.S. Park Police officers.  

The report determined that the decision to clear the protestors was justified, but that law enforcement agencies on the scene failed to effectively communicate with each other and failed to communicate warnings to the protestors about the impending crackdown.

'We also found that although the USPP used a sound amplifying long-range acoustic device to issue three dispersal warnings to the crowd on June 1, not everyone could hear the warnings,' the report said. 

The park was cleared before Washington, D.C.'s 7 p.m. curfew that night went into effect. 

The Metropolitan Police Department's assistant chief of police told the IG's office that he had asked the incident commander to delay the clearing until the 7 p.m. curfew, when the local D.C. cops would have clear arresting authoritiy if protesters refused to leave. 

The USPP incident commander told the Interior Department's IG office that he did not consider waiting until the curfew began. 

'We were not enforcing the mayor's curfew. We're a federal entity. We don't work directly for the mayor,' he said.   

The USPP incident commander was told sometime during the afternoon of June 1 that Trump was expected to make an unscheduled movement to Lafayette Park and survey the damage. 

However the individual referred to as the USPP's operations commander was unaware that the president planned to make the trek and found out when Barr visited Lafayette Park in advance of both the clearing of the protesters and the president's Bible photo-op. 

Barr had asked him, 'Are these people still going to be here when POTUS comes out?' 

'The USPP operations commander told us he had not known until then that the president would be coming out of the White House and into Lafayette Park. He said he replied to the Attorney General, "Are you freaking kidding me?" and then hung his head and walked away,' the report said. 

The conclusions, which deny any political influence on decisions and cite fog of war confusion for any missteps, are likely to be dismissed as insufficient by critics of last summer's crackdown. 

Trump, however, sent out a statement Wednesday afternoon cheering the report. 

'Thank you to the Department of the Interior Inspector General for Completely and Totally exonerating me in the clearing of Lafayette Park!' the ex-president said.  

Former President Donald Trump sent out a statement cheering on the conclusions of the report, saying that he was 'Completely and Totally' exonerated 

'As we have said all along, and it was backed up in today's highly detailed and professionally written report, our fine Park Police made the decision to clear the park to allow a contractor to safely install antiscale fencing to protect from Antifa rioters, radical BLM protestors, and other violent demonstrators who are causing chaos and death to our cities,' Trump continued. 'In this instance, they tried burning down the church the day before the clearing. Fortunately, we were there to stop the fire from spreading beyond the basement - and it was our great honor and privilege to do so.'

'Again, thank you to the Inspector General!' the ex-president added. 

Trump's former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows also gloated about the report, thumbing his nose at various media narratives. 

'They told you Trump colluded with Russia (false), Trump ignored Russian bounties on troops (false), Trump cleared Lafayette Park "for a photo op" (false), there’s no way COVID-19 could've come from the Wuhan Lab as Trump said (false)…,' Meadows tweeted. 'Let me know if you notice a pattern here.'

The report didn't examine 'individual uses of force' by U.S. Park Police officers, with the IG noting that 'these actions are the subject of separate inquiries or ongoing lawsuits.' 

It did look into what dispersal products were used. 

The report confirmed pepper balls were shot at protesters and possibly by mistake. 

It said that leaders of the U.S. Park Police 'did not request the [Bureau of Prisons'] assistance and did not know who dispatched them to Lafayette Park on June 1.' 

It goes on to say that while the USPP had instructed officers that pepper balls be used only from inside Lafayette Park if the fence-line was breached 'USPP and open-source video evidence we reviewed showed at least one BOP officer shooting pepper balls toward H Street from inside Lafayette Park but did not show protesters breaching the bike-rack fence line.' 

One source speculated to the IG that the BOP officers heard the flash bangs and stinger ball grenades USPP officers were deploying and thought they were being attacked by the crowd. 

The report confirmed that it was D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department that deployed CS gas - commonly called 'tear gas' at the scene, after denials from U.S. Park Police and the Trump White House 

The positions of various law enforcement agencies show where D.C. Metropolitan Police was (upper left, purplse), which coincided with anecdotes of people experiencing getting hit by tear gas. As well as where the Secret Service (yellow) started deploying early 

Additionally, while USPP officers were told that CS or chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile gas would not be used 'USPP officers told us that they experienced the effects of CS gas as they approached Connecticut Avenue.'

The Park Police, however, publicly denied that any 'tear gas' had been used. 

The White House said the same thing.   

'So let me first address, no teargas was used and no rubber bullets were used. Again, no tear gas was used and no rubber bullets were used,' McEnany said during her June 3 press briefing. 

However, local news repoters found empty cannisers of Skat Shell OC and Speed-Heat CS, two products that have been described as 'tear gas.' 

Authorities' denials also hinged on the definition that products using man-made components, and not peppers, are the only ones that fall under the term 'tear gas.'  

However Speed-Heat CS contains chlorobenzylidene malononitrile, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention labeled as one of the two most common compounds found in 'riot control agents,' which the agency notes are 'sometimes referred to as "tear gas."' 

The report unearthed who deployed the CS product: D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department. 

'The MPD assistant chief of police later confirmed that the MPD used CS gas on 17th Street and told us that it did so in response to protesters who engaged in acts of violence against MPD officers after the USPP cleared Lafayette Park and began pushing protesters toward 17th Street,' the report said. 

An attorney for D.C. police made a similar admission last week in court, as protesters and the ACLU sue over the product's use.  

Critics of law enforcement's reaction were appalled that officers would use agents like 'tear gas' during a pandemic, with nearly 1,300 medical and public health professionals writing a letter after the wave of June protests urging police forces to stop using 'tear gas, smoke, or other respiratory irritants' as they could increase the risk of COVID-19.   

The report showed the U.S. Park Police's complicated interactions with other law enforcement agencies. The report never found out who called the Bureau of Prisons officers to the scene. Or why Secret Service started clearing protesters early 

Lafayette Park, the Washington nexus of the last summer's national wave of racial justice protests, is under Park Police jurisdiction; that agency falls under the Interior Department. 

Overall, the report showcases the Park Police's decision-making and its complicated interactions with various law enforcement entities, including the Secret Service and the Metropolitan Police Department.

It points out that 'the USPP and the Secret Service did not use a shared radio channel to communicate' and determines that 'weaknesses in communication and coordination may have contributed to confusion during the operation.'

Secret Service also started clearing one side of H Street before dispersal warnings went off, the report found. 

Top USPP officials said 'the Secret Service lieutenant later apologized for the early entry onto H Street during the operation but did not explain why it occurred.'  

The report released Wednesday by the Interior Department's inspector general concludes that the protesters were cleared by U.S. Park Police last June 1 so that a contractor could get started installing new fencing 

The report determined that the decision to clear the protestors was justified, but that law enforcement agencies on the scene failed to effectively communicate with each other and failed to communicate warnings to the protestors about the impending crackdown 

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 said in a statement accompanying the report.