LEFTIST PROPAGANDA HIT PIECE:

Attorney General William Barr ordered protesters cleared ahead of President Donald Trump’s church photo op

Check out this post from masslive

Ahead of President Donald Trump’s walk to St. John’s Episcopal Church on Monday, U.S. Attorney General William Barr ordered authorities to clear a crowd of protesters gathered peacefully near the White House.

The Washington Post and CNN report that Barr was personally involved in the order, which led to federal police pushing through the crowd before a 7 p.m. curfew using smoke, teargas, rubber bullets and flash-bangs, according to protesters, reporters and clergy who say the crowd was peaceful at the time.

Thousands have gathered near the White House and in dozens of cities across the country to protest systemic racism and last week’s death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man pinned under a white Minneapolis police officer’s knee for almost 9 minutes.

CNN reported that top officials responsible for White House security had previously planned to expand the perimeter around Lafayette Square, a public park north of the building. But a Justice Department official told CNN that just after 6 p.m., when Barr saw the area hadn’t been emptied, he told police to clear it.

The official said that Barr was told police believed protesters were gathering rocks and that water bottles were thrown in his direction. CNN crews disputed the account, saying they did not witness any bottles thrown at Barr.

Trump’s visit to the church was denounced by religious leaders, activists and leading Democrats.

“I am shaken, not so much by the taste of tear gas and the bit of a cough I still have, but by the fact that that show of force was for a PHOTO OPPORTUNITY,” said Rev. Gini Gerbasi.

Trump allies and campaign members lauded the move as a show of strength and respect for a damaged historic church amid escalating violence.

A handful of Republican senators, including Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Susan Collins of Maine, Tim Scott of South Carolina, and James Lankford of Oklahoma, criticized the president for staging an event after disrupting a peaceful protest, Politico reported. “There is a fundamental — a constitutional — right to protest, and I’m against clearing out a peaceful protest for a photo op that treats the Word of God as a political prop,” Sasse said in a statement. “Every public servant in America should be lowering the temperature.”