Last year, the mainstream media pushed the tale that the Trump White House violently cleared Lafayette Park at the president’s behest for photo-op.The story was treated as unquestioned truth.
Yesterday it was revealed that the media once again engage is yet another disinformation campaign. Funny how it always, always goes in one direction.
Biden’s Interior Department released their Inspector General report which found that Park Police in Washington, D.C. cleared the park of protesters without direction from Trump, who subsequently walked through the park for the photo opportunity.
The IG report found that park police had been planning to clear the area for days to install anti-scale fencing and that the decisions on the ground were not changed because of the president or White House's plans.
Interior Department Inspector General Mark Greenblatt said:
"We did not find evidence that a potential presidential visit to the park or the St John's Church influenced the park police's decision making, or their deployment, you know, in their operation to clear out the park. So that's the big, the big finding of our report is, is the is the clear evidence of why they decided to do so and when they made the decision, and on the flip side, the lack of evidence related to the President's potential visit influencing that decision.”
NBC’s Ken Dilanian admits “the narrative we thought we knew was not the reality.”
Trump said in response to the IG report:
“As we have said all along, and it was backed up in today’s highly detailed and professionally written report, our fine Park Police made the decision to clear the park to allow a contractor to safely install antiscale fencing to protect from Antifa rioters, radical BLM protestors, and other violent demonstrators who are causing chaos and death to our cities. In this instance, they tried burning down the church the day before the clearing. Fortunately, we were there to stop the fire from spreading beyond the basement—and it was our great honor and privilege to do so. Again, thank you to the Inspector General!”
Glenn Greenwald rightly slams the media for spending the last year reporting that Trump had the protestors tear gassed as “indisputable truth”, noting that “it provoked weeks of unmitigated media outrage, presented as one of the most egregious assaults on the democratic order in decades.”
“Over and over we see the central truth: the corporate outlets that most loudly and shrilly denounce “disinformation” — to the point of demanding online censorship and de-platforming in the name of combating it — are, in fact, the ones who spread disinformation most frequently and destructively. It is hard to count how many times they have spread major fake stories in the Trump years. For that reason, they have nobody but themselves to blame for the utter collapse in trust and faith on the part of the public, which has rightfully concluded they cannot and should not be believed.”