By Harold Pease, Ph. D.
Mar-A-Lago was President Trump’s second bout with “deadly force” where he lived. Some remember he first faced it as president May 30, 2020, at his residence. It was when the White House was surrounded by hundreds of angry Black Lives Matter and Antifa anarchists violently protesting the death of George Floyd and simultaneously threatening President Trump. They burned cars and pillaged businesses in big cities across the nation. They wanted to do the same to the White House and its resident. They even burned St Johns Episcopal Church across the street.
CNN reported, “More than 60 US Secret Service Uniformed Division officers and special agents were injured starting Friday night through Sunday morning near the White House as protests rocked Washington, DC, following the death of George Floyd last week, according to a statement from the Secret Service. The officers and agents were injured when protesters threw projectiles such as bricks, rocks, bottles, fireworks and other items.… Personnel were also directly physically assaulted as they were kicked, punched and exposed to bodily fluids.”
Rioters breached the fences surrounding the White House. They tussled over the last fence barrier. The Hill reported, “Barricades have fallen to the west of the White House and the crowd is surging forward, once again coming face-to-face with Secret Service who’ve moved into formation and raised their riot shields—a few stained yellow from eggs just thrown.” Yahoo! News reported, they “quite literally hit President Trump’s doorstep .”
“The demonstrations led to dramatic clashes involving fists, shields and tear gas against the backdrop of Trump’s official residence. Hundreds of protesters marched through the nation’s capital and made their way to Pennsylvania Avenue early Saturday morning where they engaged in hours of violent clashes with Secret Service officers before being dispersed with pepper spray. Uniformed Secret Service officers kept them at bay with riot gear and shields till about 2.a.m., until “officers from the U.S. Park Police arrived to reinforce the Secret Service.” (“Night of rage on Pennsylvania Avenue as protesters clash with Secret Service in front of the White House,” by Hunter Walker White House Correspondent, Yahoo! News, May 30, 2020).
“A city-wide curfew was implemented over the weekend between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. Curfews have been imposed in at least 40 other major U.S. cities and the National Guard has been deployed in 15 states” (American Military News, June 01, 2020, Laura Widener).
As Trump’s home, the White House itself, looked next to be breached “Secret Service agents rushed President Donald Trump to a White House bunker” below where he spent “nearly and hour.” We learned later that “Melania Trump and the couple’s 14-year-old son, Barron, were escorted with him” (“Trump took shelter in White House bunker as protests raged,” by Jonathan Lemire and Zeke Miller, AP, May 31, 2020).
Stephen Miller, Trump’s senior adviser in the White House remembers that weekend. “Yes, I was indeed there at the time. I remember the entire period of feeling violence quite well, when it was just dangerous to drive home from work. You had BLM rioters and agitators roaming the streets blocking traffic, menacing, violence, breaking store windows. Specifically with respect to that incident, I talked to many secret service agents afterwards, agents were literally fighting hand combat against those radicals to stop them from invading the White House, climbing that fence and through sheer force of numbers invading the White House. That is what happened. It is the actual definition of an insurrection”—the 2020 White House Insurrection (The Benny Show, “FBI Deadly Force Authorization on Trump Just Disclosed,” May 31, 2024).
Then Miller posed some important and revealing questions about a potentially life threatening event to President Trump long since buried by the fedsurrection on the Capitol seven months’s later but should have been followed with a Congressional investigation. He asked, “Where are the prosecutions? Where is the national narrative about the BLM insurrection outside the White House? Where are the discussions of how democracy barely survived that day? You don’t see it.”There was no FBI action against Antifa and BLM during and after the White House insurrection of May 30, 2020, There was never any consequence for leftist bad behavior or leftist violence.
Why? He answered his own question. “There’ll be no discussion of it, because the left instead wants to create a completely false and constructed narrative that normal patriotic Americans are domestic terrorists and threats to the survival of democracy when in fact it is BLM! It is Antifa!! It is the radical left Marxists that are and remain a threat to the survival of American democracy!!!” (Ibid.). The House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi had no interest in investigating the left for insurrection. We are still trying to get her text messages with Capitol police and the FBI on January 6. Many believe she helped orchestrate the fedsurrection. She turned down Trump’s offer of 10,000 National Guardsmen to protect the Capitol.
In Aprill 2022 Joe Biden expressed rage “that Merrick Garland has not moved to put Trump in prison” (Garland Faces Growing Pressure as Jan. 6 investigation widens:, by Katie Jenner, Katie Rogers, and Michael S. Schmidt, New York Times, April 2, 2022). The narrative that normal patriotic Americans are domestic terrorists and threats to the survival of democracy is a Biden core message. When asked in 2022, “What are you gonna do to stop Donald Trump from getting back in the White House?” Biden answered, “We just have to demonstrate that he will not take power. He will not become president again.” Apparently Biden had no problem with Antifa using deadly force against President Trump on May 30, 2020, at the White House and again as a presidential candidate, Aug. 8, 2023 at Mar-a-Lago, even authorizing the FBI to use it.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution and a syndicated columnist. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. Newspapers have permission to publish this column. Read more of his weekly columns at www.LibertyUnderFire.org Column # 770 Subscribe now for free columns at this address. Help preserve our Republic while we still can by sharing this column.