Barr contradicts Trump, says Secret Service called for him to be moved to bunker

Attorney General William Barr said Monday that Washington, D.C., protests last month were so violent that the U.S. Secret Service recommended President Trump be moved to an underground bunker at the White House, undercutting the president’s own claims that he visited to the bunker for an “inspection.”

Barr made the comment during an interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier that aired Monday evening in which he defended the decision by federal law enforcement to forcibly clear peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square outside the White House last Monday.

“On Monday, we were reacting to three days of extremely violent demonstrations right across from the White House, a lot of injuries to police officers, arson,” Barr said. “Things were so bad that the Secret Service recommended the president go down to the bunker. We can’t have that in our country. So the decision was made. We had to move the perimeter one block. That is what we were doing.”

Barr’s remarks appeared to confirm reports from multiple news outlets that Trump was rushed to the bunker, known as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, the evening of Friday, May 29, as protests around the White House grew in intensity.

Trump disputed the reports in an interview with Fox News Radio last Wednesday, claiming he visited the bunker during the day to inspect it.

“I went down during the day, and I was there for a tiny, little, short period of time, and it was much more for inspection,” Trump said. “These problems are during the night, not during the day.”

Trump denied that the Secret Service recommended he move to the bunker for safety reasons but claimed that “they said it would be a good time to go down, take a look, because maybe sometime you’re going to need it.”