U.S. officials crossed the Rubicon this week when they not only abetted and perpetrated an assault on peaceful protesters Monday evening outside the White House but subsequently lied on Tuesday about their role in the attack.
The chaotic scene of federal police using shields, batons, tear gas, and rubber bullets to clear Lafayette Park of peaceful citizens played out on TV screens across America, conveniently coming during dinner hour on the East Coast. The lack of provocation or aggression of any kind was clear as police armed in riot gear gassed protesters, ramming them with their shields to push them back.
Inside the White House Rose Garden, Donald Trump was simultaneously declaring himself the "president of law and order" and promising that "thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel and law enforcement officers" would be deployed to stop the rioting and looting. Trump then exited the White House and shuffled across a cleared square of the park flanked by an entourage of Secret Service agents and the nation's top military and law enforcement officials, including Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, who was dressed in combat fatigues rather than the dress uniforms always donned by active-duty military officers visiting the White House.
Trump looked like a buffoon but the message was clear: He was declaring war on the constitutionally guaranteed right of The People to peaceably assemble. And Barr, Esper, and Milley were all there to help prop up draft dodger Trump's show of of force.
Once the reviews were in, however, everyone but Barr quickly made flimsy efforts to distance themselves from one of the most deeply un-American abuses of power by a president in modern memory.
Esper and Milley deployed a Pentagon spokesperson on background to claim they had no idea they were being used as props in Trump's militaristic fantasy. Really, an anonymous DOD official was the best they could do to disavow their involvement? That is just pathetic. If they had any integrity whatsoever, they would hold a press conference or, at the very least, issue a joint statement. Until they do: complicit. Period.
Park police similarly lied about the event, claiming they hadn't deployed tear gas, when everyone at the scene was perfectly clear that tear gas was exactly what had been hurled at them.
The only participant who was overtly giddy about the entire episode was Barr, who issued a statement Tuesday calling the previous evening "a more peaceful night" in D.C. and thanking Esper and Milley by name for their "support." Barr personally ordered the violent assault on the protesters, according to reporting from The Washington Post.
"There will be even greater law enforcement resources and support in the region tonight," Barr ominously promised in his statement.
Top U.S. military and law enforcement officials have placed themselves clearly and indisputably on the side of authoritarianism. Godspeed to all peaceful protesters tonight.
