When President Trump visited Lafayette Park in the wake of a Black Lives Matter riot that damaged a historic church, the leftist media went to town.

Washington Post big shot Philip Bump put out this phony "narrative," which got repeated in the news over and over:

Last Monday, shortly before President Trump began speaking from the White House Rose Garden, members of the U.S. Park Police and the National Guard began sweeping protesters out of Lafayette Square using tear gas, horses, batons, riot shields and explosive devices. The attack on the protesters was surprising in its ferocity, particularly given that the protest appeared to be vocal but peaceful and a city-mandated curfew was still 30 minutes away.

In short order, though, the effort made some ghoulish sense: Trump left the White House, proceeded across Lafayette Square and posed briefly for photographs outside of St. John's Episcopal Church. The goal of the outing was to send a dual message: that Trump prioritized religion and that he wasn't cowed by the protests. Reporting had revealed that Trump was moved to a secure bunker a few nights earlier; this was Trump's way of reiterating his strength. It was a demonstration that required a clear path (and a reinforced protective bubble).

To hear the White House tell it, this narrative is wrong. It's wrong to say that the square was cleared for Trump's benefit, it's wrong to describe the crowd as peaceful and, the most frequent complaint, it's wrong to say that tear gas was used. Attorney General William P. Barr made each of these points on CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday, in fact.

Then he goes on to say why Barr was wrong:

Barr seems to be basing his denial both on recategorizing pepper spray as somehow less bad than synthetic compounds ("chemicals") and by noting that it's technically not a gas, but a solid powder. But, then, neither are chloroacetophenone and chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile. Tear gas isn't a gas, it's a fine particulate or mist (as the CDC describes). Again, Barr is trying to be cute with his language, offering a pedantic refutation of a common term like a fourth grader who has just learned that a tomato is not a vegetable.

This, it turns out, was total crap.  There was tear gas deployed; it just wasn't deployed by Trump's men.  It was deployed by the Metropolitan Police Department, run by Black Lives Matter enthusiast Muriel Bowser.

Here's what The Federalist has found since:

The Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department has confirmed to The Federalist that the MPD deployed tear gas on June 1, 2020, in the area of 17th and H Streets in response to "assaultive actions."

The MPD's Deputy Director of the Office of Communications Kristen Metzger told The Federalist that the tear gas was one of the crowd control tools deployed after individuals began throwing multiple objects at MPD officers, including "an incendiary device attack that seriously burned and scarred the limb of an MPD officer."

So the Trump administration was telling the truth all along, and the Washington police, which have no place in the federal chain of command, but instead are led by a leftist mayor, are the ones who did it.  And the Metropolitan Police argue they did it with good reason, given that some police officers were hit by flaming objects and got literally burned.

But Trump, see, was a crazy dictator, gassing "peaceful" protesters.  He was wicked, Pinochet-like, a man who would turn our country into some kind of hell, so the narrative built, culminating in the Jan. 6 crowd control incident, now grandly billed as an "insurrection."

It was quite a railroading of President Trump during that year-ago period when rioters were doing their worst.  First, the now leftist-run historic church renounced him.  Then the generals who accompanied him renounced themselves, under pressure from...someone.  Then the left hollered about Trump's bible as he made his walk to the church.  Now the claims that Trump used tear gas on the protestors have been found to be a hideous lie.

There sure was some circling of malevolents going on against Trump in that sorry year.  They tried and tried to make Trump into something evil, to pin something on him, anything for the bad public relations.  It was false, except that only now does the truth come out.  Is the Washington Post going to apologize to President Trump for all its false accusations and ignorant reporting?  Nope, they're too shameless.  For the rest of us, we should be highly suspicious of their motives any time they try to say something negative about Trump.  They've got quite a record of lies, and it stinks something fierce.

Image: Pixabay, Pixabay License.

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