July 31, 2024
In June 2020, as demonstrations around the killing of George Floyd reached their peak, Trump administration officials did extensive work laying the groundwork for the President to invoke the Insurrection Act in order to quell the protests, an Inspector General report released on Wednesday found.
The Justice Department’s Inspector General detailed how close Donald Trump and then-Attorney General Bill Barr came on June 1 to invoking the Insurrection Act, which gives the President nearly limitless powers to use the military for domestic law enforcement purposes.
Some FBI officials believed that Trump would invoke the act, and were studying what it would mean for their agency. The D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI Washington Field Office were asked to prepare information showing that civilian law enforcement was incapable of handling the situation, providing the justification for federal troops.
And, the report says, the Office of Legal Counsel and White House attorneys drafted an Insurrection Act proclamation and accompanying executive order for Trump to sign.
The New York Times reported the drafts in 2021, and NBC reported on Trump’s interest in invoking the Act in June 2020. But the Inspector General’s report adds new details and perspective on an episode that looms over the chaotic final year of the Trump administration.
It chronicles the Trump administration’s response to an early peak in the Black Lives Matter protests that swept the country in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd. After considering and then declining to invoke the Insurrection Act over protests in Minnesota, the report says, administration officials’ attention turned to the situation in Washington D.C.
There, protestors were demonstrating in the center of the city. Lafayette Park, which sits across from the White House, was host to several demonstrations.
For Trump, protests outside of the White House presented both a crisis of legitimacy and a potential photo op. Lafayette Park sits between the White House and historic St. John’s Church, where on June 1 Trump decided, now infamously, to pose holding a Bible.
Story Continues
Bugs Marlowe