Yet Another Media Tale — Trump Tear-Gassed Protesters For a Church Photo Op — Collapses

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by Glenn Greenwald

For more than a year, it has been consecrated media fact that former President Donald Trump and his White House, on June 1 of last year, directed the U.S. Park Police to use tear gas against peaceful Lafayette Park protesters, all to enable a Trump photo-op in front of St. John’s Church. That this happened was never presented as a possibility or likelihood but as indisputable truth. And it provoked weeks of unmitigated media outrage, presented as one of the most egregious assaults on the democratic order in decades.
 
This tale was so pervasive in the media landscape that it would be impossible for any one article to compile all the examples. “Peaceful Protesters Tear-Gassed To Clear Way For Trump Church Photo-Op,” read the NPR headline on June 1. The New York Times ran with: “Protesters Dispersed With Tear Gas So Trump Could Pose at Church.” CNN devoted multiple segments to venting indignation while the on-screen graphic declared: “Peaceful Protesters Near White House Tear-Gassed, Shot With Rubber Bullets So Trump Can Have Church Photo Op.”
 
ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos “reported” that “the administration asked police to clear peaceful protesters from the park across the White House so that the President could stage a photo op.” The Intercept published an article stating that “federal police used tear gas and rubber bullets to clear protesters from Lafayette Square in front of the White House,” all to feature a video where the first interviewee said: “to me, the way our military and police have behaved toward the protesters at the instruction of President Trump has almost been Nazi-like.”Nazi-like. This was repeated by virtually every major corporate outlet:
 


 
At a June 2 Press Conference, then-Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) proclaimed with anger: “last night I watched as President Trump, having gassed peaceful protesters just so he could do this photo op, then he went on to teargas priests who were helping protesters in Lafayette Park.” Speaking on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi exclaimed: “What is this, a banana republic?,” when asked about NBC News’ report that “security forces used tear gas and flash-bangs against a crowd of peaceful demonstrators to clear the area for the president.”
 
There were some denials of this narrative at the time, largely confined to right-wing media. ABC News mocked “hosts on Fox News, one of the president’s preferred news media outlets, [who] have spent the days since the controversial photo op shifting defenses to fit the president’s narrative.” Meanwhile, The Federalist‘s Mollie Hemingway — in an article retweeted by Trump as a “must read” — cited sources to assert that the entire media narrative was false because force was to clear the Park not to enable Trump’s photo op but rather “because [protesters] had climbed on top of a structure in Lafayette Park that had been burned the prior night” and the Park Police decided to build a barrier to protect it.
 
But as usual, the self-proclaimed Superior Liberal Truth Squad instantly declared them to be lying. The Washington Post‘s “fact-checker,” Phillip Bump, mocked denials from Trump supporters and right-wing reporters such as Hemingway, proclaiming that a recent statement from the Park Police “brings the debate to a close,” as it proves “the deployment of security forces using weapons and irritants to clear a peaceful protest so that the president could have a photo op.”
 

 
All of this came crashing down on their heads on Wednesday afternoon. The independent Inspector General of the Interior Department, Mark Lee Greenblatt, issued his office’s findings after a long investigation into “the actions of the U.S. Park Police (USPP) to disperse protesters in and around Lafayette Park in Washington, DC, on June 1, 2020.” Greenblatt has been around Washington for a long time, occupying numerous key positions in the Obama administration, including investigative counsel at the Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General and Assistant Inspector General for Investigations at Obama’s Commerce Department.
 
The letter released by Greenblatt’s office accompanying the report makes clear how far-reaching the investigation was:

Over the course of this review, our career investigative staff conducted extensive witness interviews, reviewed video footage from numerous vantage points, listened to radio transmissions from multiple law enforcement entities, and examined evidence including emails, text messages, telephone records, procurement documents, and other related materials. This report presents a thorough, independent examination of that evidence to assess the USPP’s decision making and operations, including a detailed timeline of relevant actions and an analysis of whether the USPP’s actions complied with governing policies.

The IG’s conclusion could not be clearer: the media narrative was false from start to finish. Namely, he said, “the evidence did not support a finding that the [U.S. Park Police] cleared the park on June 1, 2020, so that then President Trump could enter the park.” Instead — exactly as Hemingway’s widely-mocked-by-liberal-outlets article reported — “the evidence we reviewed showed that the USPP cleared the park to allow a contractor to safely install anti-scale fencing in response to destruction of Federal property and injury to officers that occurred on May 30 and May 31.” Crucially, “ 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.”
 



 
The detailed IG report elaborated on the timeline even more extensively. It was “on the morning of June 1” when “the Secret Service procured anti-scale fencing to establish a more secure perimeter around Lafayette Park that was to be delivered and installed that same day.” The agencies had “determined that it was necessary to clear protesters from the area in and around the park to enable the contractor’s employees to safely install the fence.” Indeed, “we found that by approximately 10 a.m. on June 1, the USPP had already begun developing a plan to clear protesters from the area to enable the contractor to safely install the anti-scale fence” — many hours before Trump decided to go.
 
The clearing of the Park, said the IG Report, had nothing to do with Trump or his intended visit to the Church; in fact, those responsible for doing this did not have any knowledge of Trump’s intentions:

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Gosh, this knocks a hole in one of AJ’s favorite false accusations. Of course, many of us have known this was a lie from the beginning. First, it wasn’t a “peaceful protest”. There was no permit for a protest. And it wasn’t a “photo-op”, it was Trump showing support for the church and federal property as a whole in the face of riotous, insurrectionist, terroristic BLM/ANTIFA thugs.

Just another PROVEN lie. Maybe we need a list of when the left wing media DIDN’T lie. That would be a shorter list.

This is simply another example of many of the slobbering loyalty of mesmerized Trump cultists.

There is no possible wrong your infallible Mango god can do. When the world witnessed his assault on peaceful protestors for no reason other than a photo op, you and your Trump bowel dwelling loyalist we’re unfazed. You obeyed the orders to reject what you saw with your eyes and and heard with your ears in order to defended him.

Now, simply because you read that a Trump-appointed inspector general announced that the violent unneeded rush to clear Lafayette Park was coincidental to Trump and his orbit of cohorts taking a casual stroll within 3 minutes, it has to be positive proof. What you want to believe is iron clad/case closed truth while what you don’t want to believe can never be proven to you.

You have no ability of making an education or rational conclusion of any Trump action because there is no wrong the man can do.

This isn’t an isolated incident.

You’re projecting, and describing yourself.

Biden continues to fail in every area and your addled mind struggles to rationalize your own derangement.

Trump was effective. Biden is not.

Trump was elected. Biden was not.

Rigged elections have consequences.

First, Biden-butt-licker, we all knew from the beginning that the lie you devoured so ravenously was a lie because THERE WAS NO GAS. There was smoke.

Second, there was no “peaceful protest”, except in the propaganda sense. A church was burned. Barriers were torn down. Statues were defaced and destroyed. Cops were assaulted.

Third, it’s not the IG but those on the scene and involved dispelling your favorite lie.

So, suck it. You LOSE, loser. Everything you grasp upon to bolster your failed ideology are LIES. And here we have further proof.

Poor AJ… spanked again.

“Now, simply because you read that a Trump-appointed inspector general announced that the violent unneeded rush to clear Lafayette Park was coincidental to Trump and his orbit of cohorts taking a casual stroll within 3 minutes, it has to be positive proof. What you want to believe is iron clad/case closed truth while what you don’t want to believe can never be proven to you.”

Perhaps you would be well served to investigate the career of Mark Lee Greenblatt before you show just how biased you are, no matter the facts. And then, you demand that we believe what “can never be proven to us” because ……..? Because if it is reported by XiNN, NPR or some other leftist supported “news” outlet, it must be true even lacking that inconvenient item called “proof.”

You have continually accused Trump of lying. Seems it was the left wing media liars that were lying. And you were gulping down the Kool-Aid as fast as you could. Now, when faced with “proof” (i.e. actual facts) you will claim otherwise.

For starters, I have never, as you state, demanded anything of you or the lunatic sock puppets you associate with. And as stated many times, I don’t even expect an iota of rational thought or even a coherent rebuttal from you.

Like Nathan above, you can’t even see the light of day enough to acknowledge your Mango god is no longer in command. I suspect the flock here is buying into his buffoonery of taking back his ousted position in August?

You guys have turned into complete kooks (or have finally come completely out of the closet). You are utterly batshit crazy. The Trump machine has pissed down your neck while telling you it’s raining to the point that you don’t know the difference. Nor do you care.

“Demanding” or even expecting any recognition of reality from the rabbit hole dwelling Trump butt worshipping lot would be silly. I just like prod the basket of gullibles every so often just to watch the flutter.

Your lie has been proven a lie. Just like your lie of Trump being racist. You have never had a position here that wasn’t based on a lie. Any intelligent person would learn from such mistakes. You simply repeat and amplify them.

Not a word from you about the son of the guy you currently worship dropping N-bombs all over the place. But, then again, you didn’t object to the idiot Biden when HE dropped N-bombs and called blacks “predators” that would turn schools into “racial jungles” if integrated.

Lies and racism; the Democrat mainstays.

Actually, I probably do owe you and your cohorts an apology.

I’m dealing with a cult who has no control over an actual thought process but rather have been indoctrinated to protect their masters and do their bidding. Yet knowing that, here I am prodding the obviously inflected simply for my very own amusement (but by all means comfort yourself with some notion that I’m getting a check).

That’s actually sadistically cruel of me and I’m disappointed that I’ve lowered myself to take advantage of the obviously invalid. In many ways, I’ve actually become the cruel bastardly son-of-a-bitch image of the very man I despised.

I would ask you to forgive me but to be honest, I really seriously don’t give a flying fuck.

We know you don’t give a f**k about the truth. You’ve never utilized it. Here you stupidly came forth to try and defend one of your all-time favorite lies, which you have cited in almost every post. It’s been proven to be a lie and you have proven you love lies too much to ever let go of them.

You swapped sucking Obama’s racist butt to sucking idiot Biden’s racist, corrupt, idiot butt and, perhaps, this is what made you addicted to lies.

You invite the ass-kicking you get every time you come on here and you deserve every boot.

“In many ways, I’ve actually become the cruel bastardly son-of-a-bitch image of the very man I despised.”

Correction, you’ve become the image of a non-existent bastard the media invented for you to hate.

You are the rube. You are the mob. You are the Cult.

Own it.

and the dish ran away with the spoon.

And the idiot and the whore became POTUS and VP through fraud.

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

Winston Churchill

Timeless.

And idiot Biden may not even put his pants on.

Most Americans don’t recognize Biden as the legal President of the United States, so these lies come with a cost.

CNN The Fake News Network the American Peoples trust in CNN has fallen to a lower rate then one can imagine and they deserve the whole thing with their years of Fake News

Defund NPR Nazi Public Radio

What is most amazzing in that this faux pres.’s cabinet has a secretary of defense that impugn the woke ideology that gays/libs won the Civil War for the north?? the pompous, egoistical, ex army general is a real gem for this country. he was not liked by is fellow officers for his racist views. dig deep into the literature, you will find it.