Somehow, William Barr thinks he can slither out of his responsibility for the police aggression at the White House last Monday.
“They told me they were about to make the announcement and I think they stretched the announcements over 20 minutes. During the time I was there, I would periodically hear announcements,” Barr said. “They had the Park Police mounted unit ready, so it was just a matter of execution. So, I didn’t just say to them, ‘Go.’”
Barr said it was a Park Police tactical commander — an official he never spoke to — who gave the order for the law enforcement agencies to move in and clear the protesters.
“I’m not involved in giving tactical commands like that,” he said. “I was frustrated and I was also worried that as the crowd grew, it was going to be harder and harder to do. So my attitude was get it done, but I didn’t say, ‘Go do it.’”
Barr insisted there was no connection between the heavy-handed crackdown on the protesters and Trump’s walk soon after to St. John’s Church. The attorney general said he had learned in the afternoon that Trump wanted to go outside, and said that when he went to the White House in the evening, he learned of the president’s intended destination.
Ok. Sure. That makes sense. We all saw him come down and “review” the troops before Trump was scheduled to come out and demand that police dominate the streets of America. And we know he has a “command center” in DC’s Chinatown and that he has been directing the response in DC and the federal response around the country. And he admits that he was frustrated and “his attitude” was “get it done.”
But he didn’t stand up in the moment and yell “Charge!” in that moment so he wasn’t responsible.
Moreover, it’s pretty obvious that they wanted those scenes of tear-gassing protesters and hitting them with shields and batons to clear the way for Dear Leader to give that speech in which he demanded that governors and mayors do just that.
Barr and Trump both have a little problem taking responsibility for their actions.