“The security perimeter around the White House keeps expanding. Tall black fencing is going up seemingly by the hour. Armed guards and sharpshooters and combat troops are omnipresent,” the Washington Post reports.

“In the 72 hours since Monday’s melee at Lafayette Square, the White House has been transformed into a veritable fortress — the physical manifestation of President Trump’s vision of law-and-order “domination” over the millions of Americans who have taken the streets to protest racial injustice.”

“The White House is now so heavily fortified that it resembles the monarchical palaces or authoritarian compounds of regimes in faraway lands.”

Los Angeles Times: “His decision to invoke a military response to nationwide protests against police brutality — symbolized by the move Monday to gas mostly peaceful protesters in a park across from the White House to clear the way for a staged photo outside a church — appears to have been a fateful miscalculation.”

“The incident has created a deep rift between the White House and the Pentagon, and drew an extraordinary rebuke from Trump’s former secretary of Defense…”

“Images of a widening perimeter of fences and concrete barriers that the administration has erected in a several-block area around the White House, as federal agents and troops patrol key intersections, have only deepened the sense of Trump as an isolated, beleaguered figure.”

Attorney General William Barr said the federal government has evidence that the “radical left-wing antifa movement” and certain “foreign actors” have “hijacked” legitimate protests around the country to incite violence, ABC News reports.

He did not provided direct evidence of either claim.

“Gas canisters collected by WUSA crews Monday night indicate that artificial CS tear gas was indeed used by federal law enforcement agents clearing out the protesters next to Lafayette Square,” WUSA reports.

The Trump administration has denied tear gas was used.

Former White House chief of staff John Kelly defended former defense secretary Jim Mattis over his criticism of the president’s handling of nationwide protests and disputed Trump’s assertion that he fired the retired general in 2018, the Washington Post reports.

Said Kelly: “The president did not fire him. He did not ask for his resignation. The president has clearly forgotten how it actually happened or is confused. The president tweeted a very positive tweet about Jim until he started to see on Fox News their interpretation of his letter. Then he got nasty. Jim Mattis is an honorable man.”

Earlier for members: Trump Loses ‘His’ Generals