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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNG Cmdr: police suddenly moved on Lafayette Sq protesters, 'excessive force' to clear path for Trump
By Tom Jackman and Carol D. Leonnig
July 27, 2020 at 10:03 a.m. EDT
An Army National Guard commander who witnessed protesters forcibly removed from Lafayette Square last month is contradicting claims by the attorney general and the Trump administration that they did not speed up the clearing to make way for the presidents photo opportunity minutes later.
A new statement by Adam DeMarco, an Iraq veteran who now serves as a major in the D.C. National Guard, also casts doubt on the claims by acting Park Police Chief Gregory Monahan that violence by protesters spurred Park Police to clear the area at that time with unusually aggressive tactics. DeMarco said that demonstrators were behaving peacefully and that tear gas was deployed in an excessive use of force.
DeMarco backs up law enforcement officials who told The Washington Post they believed the clearing operation would happen after the 7 p.m. curfew that night but it was dramatically accelerated after Attorney General William P. Barr and others appeared in the park around 6 p.m. Monahan has said the operation was conducted so that a fence might be erected around the park. DeMarco said the fencing did not arrive until 9 p.m. hours after Barr told the Park Police to expand the perimeter.
DeMarcos account of events also reveals for the first time the details of the visit that Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made to Lafayette Square just before the move on protesters and the warning he gave his troops.
Milley, who had arrived in the park with Barr about 30 minutes before the clearing, warned DeMarco to keep officers from going overboard. General Milley told me to ensure that National Guard personnel remained calm, adding that we were there to respect the demonstrators First Amendment rights, DeMarco said.
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Me.
(35,454 posts)Firewall
Dennis Donovan
(18,770 posts)Milley, who had arrived in the park with Barr about 30 minutes before the clearing, warned DeMarco to keep officers from going overboard. General Milley told me to ensure that National Guard personnel remained calm, adding that we were there to respect the demonstrators First Amendment rights, DeMarco said.
Me.
(35,454 posts)Makes me feel better about him.
uponit7771
(90,301 posts)Wednesdays
(17,306 posts)or all the lying video tapes of the incident?"
crickets
(25,950 posts)Unlike mercenaries, who only answer to their company paycheck, NG members have taken oaths and owe their allegiance to country and Constitution.
It's just not as easy to get the National Guard to act without thought and lie for you later, is it, Bill?
chia
(2,244 posts)I hope he's called to testify and that he's not retaliated against.
blakstoneranger
(333 posts)One of the main reasons the christian evangelical right wanted trump so badly is that they thought he would be, among other things, their strong man. They didn't want a man of God because a man of God could not be the strong man they need to get them the power they so desperately want. Trump came through for them on a number of cases; he used the Lafayette Sq incident to show the evangelicals that he could be tough. Holding up the bible was his signal to the christian evangelical right that he was still their "strongman". What surprised me was that the media didn't say who was behind this grotesque display of stupidity!
Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump
Book by Sarah Posner (published in May 26, 2020)
erronis
(15,170 posts)on a subject that evil.