So, per his comments to CBS, looks like Barr's decision this week not to describe US law enforcement as tainted by 'systemic racism' was no accident politi.co/2BKLp8p politi.co/3h4oNji
Also struck by a few other things in @margbrennan intvu: Barr constantly slamming the media. About half dozen times. Seems to oppose any change to "immunity" for police, which may mean increasingly controversial 'qualified immunity' (see @Reuters series reut.rs/3h00Nxz )
And unless CBS edited it out, Barr was actually less apologetic about Lafayette Sq incident than he was three days ago, when he said it was unfortunate that so many protesters were on H street politi.co/2BKLp8p
Beyond the silly claim about pepper balls not being 'chemical' (I bet you the feds would charge u up the ass if you used it), there seemed to be an effort to argue that the tactics against the largely peaceful Monday evening protest were legit because of violence 1-3 days earlier
Still not clear to me what authority they had to clear the curtilage of the church. And even if the move to close H Street was decided before the photo-op, how on earth was Trump going to do it without the church and street cleared first. Someone must've known Trump was coming...
