WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former U.S. Attorney General William Barr created security risks when he deployed unprepared federal law enforcement officers to respond to racial justice protests near the White House in 2020, according to a Justice Department review released on Wednesday.
The report focused on the role Barr played in responding to protests in Washington following the police killing in Minneapolis of George Floyd, a Black man whose death sparked a global wave of protests.
“We were troubled by the department leadership’s decision-making that required DOJ law enforcement agents and elite tactical units to perform missions for which they lacked the proper equipment and training,” wrote Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz in the report, which found that Barr’s leadership created a “chaotic and disorganized” response.
Sending armed agents to respond to civil unrest without proper guidance “created safety and security risks for the agents and the public,” he added.
Barr declined to be interviewed for the report, the Justice Department said, and he did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Officers used tear gas and rubber bullets to clear racial justice protesters near the White House, before then-President Donald Trump emerged and walked to a nearby church where he posed for a photograph holding a Bible.
Black Lives Matter protesters later sued the government, and the Justice Department settled four such lawsuits in 2022 with promises to have law enforcement agencies change their policies for how they respond to demonstrations.
The report found that Barr personally ordered Bureau of Prisons tactical teams to be deployed to the scene, in what the report said was his “attempt to demonstrate that law enforcement could handle the civil unrest without active-duty military intervention.”
The report criticized this decision, saying prison employees received “no guidance as to their mission or rules of engagement.”
At the time of the incident, the Justice Department’s head of public affairs said that Barr personally ordered law enforcement to move on the protesters.
Thursday’s report disputed that assertion, with Horowitz saying his staff could not find evidence to support this statement.
Barr said in a statement to investigators that he believed the deployment of law enforcement personnel was “exceptionally well executed.”
He added that the officials he worked with understood the objective and that “none expressed to me any confusion over their assignments or concern about their ability to carry them out.”
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