A member of Washington D.C.'s National Guard says that President Donald Trump violated protesters' First Amendment rights when he pushed them out of Lafayette Park so he could get his photo taken holding a Bible.
In an interview with Politico, the D.C. Guardsman said that he felt very uncomfortable taking part in crowd control operations during anti-police brutality protests.
"As a military officer, what I saw was more or less really f*cked up," he said. "The crowd was loud but peaceful, and at no point did I feel in danger, and I was standing right there in the front of the line. A lot of us are still struggling to process this, but in a lot of ways, I believe I saw civil rights being violated in order for a photo op."
The Guardsman went on to slam the Trump White House for trying to rewrite history by claiming that the crowd was violent, thus justifying the use of force to remove them from the park.
“I’m here to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and what I just saw goes against my oath and to see everyone try to cover up what really happened,” the Guardsman said. “What I saw was just absolutely wrong.”
