Attorney General William Barr contradicted President Trump’s narrative about his visit to the White House bunker last month.
Barr said on Monday that the Secret Service recommended that Trump relocate to the emergency bunker during protests in late May. He also said the chaotic scene outside the White House prompted the Secret Service to expand fencing and push back protesters prior to Trump’s visit to a historic church that had been partially burned in the riots the night before.
“We were reacting to three days of extremely violent demonstrations right across from the White House,” Barr told Fox News. “A lot of injuries to the police officers, arson. Things were so bad that the Secret Service recommended the president go down to the bunker.”
“We can’t have that in our country, and so the decision was made. We had to move the perimeter one block, and that is what we are doing,” he added.
Last week, Trump brushed off claims that he was rushed to the bunker as a “false report.” Instead, he said he went there for an “inspection” for a “very short period of time” amid the protests because he had only been down there “two-and-a-half times” since moving into the White House.
Barr said he has no regrets about how the White House handled the decision to remove protesters from the area just before Trump walked to St. John’s Episcopal Church for a photograph but added that he did not know about plans to visit the church until after he agreed with the order to expand the perimeter.
“The president of the United States should be able to walk one block from the White House out to the church of presidents. He should be able to do that. And this canard that this exercise was done to make that possible is totally false. I don’t see anything wrong with the president walking over to the church,” he said.
Protesters gathered outside the White House and across the nation to advocate for an end to police brutality and racial injustice following the death of George Floyd, a Minneapolis man who died after an officer knelt on his neck for several minutes while arresting him. Some of the protests have devolved into riots with arson, looting, and vandalism.
