WASHINGTON _ The U.S. Secret Service backtracked on Saturday to say that an employee had used pepper spray to clear protesters from a park near the White House on June 1, shortly before President Donald Trump held a photo-op in the area.
The determination came after "further review" of the events in Lafayette Park, which was cleared of mostly peaceful protesters shortly before Trump and an entourage walked through the area on the way to a brief visit to a nearby church.
"An agency employee used pepper spray on June 1st, during efforts to secure the area," the USSS said in a statement that was also posted on Twitter.
"The employee utilized oleoresin capsicum spray, or pepper spray, in response to an assaultive individual."
On June 5, the agency concluded that no agency personnel had used tear gas or pepper spray in Lafayette Park that day, "based on the records and information available at the time."
Trump and several administration officials, including Attorney General William Barr, walked across the park shortly after the protesters were scattered. The episode came minutes after Trump gave a speech in the Rose Garden of the White House threatening to "deploy the United States military" in U.S. cities to quell unrest triggered by the death of a black Minnesota man, George Floyd, in police custody.
Trump posed in front of the historic St. John's Episcopal Church, damaged by arson in the preceding days, where he held a bible aloft. The footage was quickly incorporated into a campaign ad.
Also on hand were Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Both have disavowed or apologized for their part in the incident.
Debate has raged for almost two weeks about whether tear gas or another noxious spray was used to clear the area, as seemed evident from television footage.
A spokesman for the U.S. Park Police said earlier in the month that it had been a mistake to deny the use of tear gas _ after first saying that its officers used smoke and pepper agents but not "tear gas," a colloquial term used to describe a variety of irritating crowd-control agents, including pepper spray.
