BHAZ — Black House Autonomous Zone — was spray painted on the columns of St. John’s Lafayette Square last night. See ENS for a full report.
Kaitlan Collins of CNN tweeted:
BHAZ — Black House Autonomous Zone — has been spray painted on the columns of the historic St. John’s church outside the White House. pic.twitter.com/or2C2myVSX
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) June 23, 2020
Protestors also attempted to pull down a statue of Andrew Jackson for his role in the Trail of Tears.
President Trump responded with a tweet threatening long jail times. Twitter tagged his tweet as abusive behavior:
According to ENS, there has been no response from church officials to requests for comment.
The Washington Post has this report: What is the ‘Black House Autonomous Zone,’ and how is D.C. policing it?
Meanwhile, Trump has offered a new reason why he did not enter the church during his photo-op. CNN factchecks:
President Donald Trump offered a new explanation last week for why he didn’t enter St. John’s Episcopal Church. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday Trump said there were “a lot of insurance reasons” for why he couldn’t go in.
…
[Washington Bishop] Budde said she had herself been inside the church after the fire, to inspect the damage. She said the church was closed to the public at the time of Trump’s arrival, but “no, there were no insurance reasons why he couldn’t go in.”
“Of course, he didn’t ask — he didn’t tell us he was coming, so there was no way to prepare,” she said. “There was nothing in his posture that indicated he was coming to the church to engage with us. There was no engagement.”
Trump continued in the Wall Street Journal interview to baselessly blame the peaceful protesters who were present before the Monday photo-op for the fire that police say had been set at the church the previous night.
The Washington Post has recreated the use of low-flying Black Hawk helicopters to intimidate demonstrators on the evening of the photo-op.