Attorney General William Barr is contradicting President Donald Trump’s claim regarding going down to the bunker of the White House.
Barr was asked about that controversial day on June 1 when demonstrators were cleared out from near the White House with force so that the president could take a walk to St. John’s Church.
When mentioning the moment at Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., Fox News’ Bret Baier asked, “If you had to do Monday over again, would you do something different?”
Barr responded, “Based on what I know now, no.”
The attorney general continued to say that law enforcement was reacting to three days of “extremely violent demonstrations.”
Barr then mentioned regarding Trump going to the secure bunker, “Things were so bad that the Secret Service recommended the president go down to the bunker.”
“We can’t have that in our country,” he added. “So the decision was made. We had to move the perimeter one block and that is what we were doing.”
Barr’s remarks contradict Trump’s statement on June 3, where he told Fox News it was a “false report” that he was taken to the bunker during protests outside the White House on the evening of May 29, as IJR previously reported.
The president said he only went down to the bunker for a “little shorter period of time” and for an “inspection.”
“I wasn’t down … I went down during the day, and I was there for a tiny, little short period of time. And it was much more for an inspection,” Trump said.
During the Fox News interview, Barr also said, “As I’ve said, the president of the United States should be able to walk one block from the White House out to the ‘church of presidents.’ He should be able to do that. And, you know, this canard that this exercise was done to make that possible is totally false. I don’t see anything wrong with the president walking over to the church.”