The claim: The Biden campaign has repeated the lie that former President Donald Trump used tear gas on peaceful protesters who had gathered in Lafayette Square outside the White House for a photo op.
Verdict: False. This has been disproven and proven false countless times. The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Inspector General released a report in June 2021 exonerating Trump of the allegation that he used tear gas on peaceful protesters who gathered in Lafayette Square in June 2020 and who were walking through the park to pose for photos at St. John’s Episcopal Church.
The Biden campaign post On Saturday night, X claimed that “on that day four years ago, President Trump tear gassed peaceful protesters outside the White House.”
Four years ago today, President Trump tear gassed peaceful protesters outside the White House. pic.twitter.com/jryy1st48P
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) June 2, 2024
Inspector’s report It corroborated President Trump and former Attorney General William Barr’s accounts of what happened that day.
Protests began in and around Lafayette Park on May 29, 2020. On May 30, USPP [U.S. Park Police] The U.S. Secret Service established a unified command center to coordinate the law enforcement response to the protests. Between May 30 and 31, at least 49 USPP officers were injured while policing the protests, and federal and private property was destroyed.
On the morning of June 1, the Secret Service procured corrosion-resistant fencing to make the perimeter of Lafayette Park safer, with delivery and installation scheduled for the same day. The USPP, in coordination with the Secret Service, determined that protesters would need to be removed from the park and surrounding areas before contractor employees could safely install the fence. The USPP planned to carry out the operation once fencing materials and a sufficient number of police officers arrived at the park. Six other law enforcement agencies assisted the USPP and the Secret Service in the operation to clear and secure the area near the park.
Work began at 6:23 pm and was completed by 6:50 pm. Shortly thereafter, at 7:01 pm, President Trump walked from the White House through Lafayette Park to St. John’s Church. At 7:30 pm, contractors began assembling and installing the insect fence, completing the work by approximately 12:30 am on June 2.
“No evidence was found to suggest that the USPP cleared Lafayette Park to allow the President to visit St. John’s Church,” the report continued.
The inspector general’s report also found that the Metropolitan Police Department, led by Washington, D.C.’s Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser, has defended using tear gas on protesters to disperse the crowds.
District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser speaks during a news conference in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
As Breitbart News editor-in-chief Alex Marlow points out in his book: Breaking News: Exposing the hidden deals and secret corruption of the established mediaPresident Trump’s walk from the White House through Lafayette Square to St. John’s Episcopal Church became a “brief moment of attention” for the press.
“The Democratic media complex, as usual, has grossly exaggerated the law enforcement response and portrayed them as using tear gas against peaceful protesters,” Marlowe wrote in his book.
On June 1, 2020, President Trump took a short walk from the White House across Lafayette Square to the church, which also attracted brief media attention. To clear the way for the president and a few select members of his administration, police took relatively extreme measures to break up the crowd of protesters and allow the president and his entourage to pass. (Lafayette Square is a popular site for political protests and rallies, and has become a major rallying point for the Black Lives Matter movement in Washington, DC. A few days later, Mayor Muriel Bowser created a Black Lives Matter Plaza just north of the square.) The Democratic media complex, as always, exaggerated the police response, stating that they used tear gas against peaceful protesters. Jake Tapper’s CNN show ran a subtitle at the bottom of the screen that read, “Peaceful protesters tear gassed for Trump Church photo op.”
Here are some other examples of how prominent media and Democratic Party figures portrayed the event:
Elizabeth Warren: “The president of the United States has tear gassed peaceful protesters.”
Joe Biden: “He’s using the United States military against the American people.”
Hillary Clinton: “Tonight, the president of the United States used the United States military to shoot peaceful protesters with rubber bullets and use tear gas.”
CNN’s Oliver Darcy: “…[P]Rubber bullets and tear gas were fired at peaceful protesters so the president could take a photo.”
“The president had peaceful protesters shot with tear gas and rubber bullets so he could get his own photo op,” said Jon Favreau, a podcast host and friend of Obama.
Kamala Harris: “Donald Trump tear gassed peaceful protesters for a photo op.”
The USPP released a statement explaining that “USPP officers and other supporting law enforcement partners did not use tear gas,” and adding:
Officers used smoke bombs and tear gas canisters as many of the protesters became aggressive and continued to throw projectiles and attempted to disarm officers. USPP officers and other supporting law enforcement agencies did not use tear gas in sealing off the area of Lafayette Park.
As Marlow explains in his book, “not a single statement was retracted” by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, President Joe Biden and others who claimed Trump used tear gas on protesters, “even after the Park Police said they used canisters, not tear gas.”
Breitbart News previously reported that the protests at Lafayette Square were not as peaceful as media outlets had made them out to be, with a Breitbart News reporter and other reporters being assaulted by protesters.
Despite these findings, Democrats and the media continue to repeat this debunked claim again and again, as Breitbart News has reported.
WATCH — ‘It doesn’t actually prove anything’: Scarborough mocks IG report that exposed use of tear gas on peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square:
In July 2020, Biden, who was then the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, falsely claimed that Trump was holding a Bible upside down.
The Democratic National Convention claimed in August 2020 that President Trump had used tear gas on peaceful protesters “across the street from the White House.” Bowser, who was introduced as a speaker, repeated this false claim, making no mention that St. John’s Episcopal Church had been burned and damaged in a fire the night before.
During a September 2020 debate, Biden claimed that President Trump had allowed “peaceful protesters” who had gathered in Lafayette Square to enter for a photo op.
More recently, Biden questioned what Trump would have done if “black Americans had stormed the Capitol” on January 6, 2021.
Biden later addressed the tear gas allegations, which have been denied as false, telling the crowd: “This is the same guy who tried to tear gas you all as you were peacefully protesting the murder of George Floyd.”
