‘PULLED HIS PUNCHES’

DHS Watchdog Blocked Investigation Into Secret Service’s Clearing of Lafayette Square, Says Report

Joseph Cuffari reportedly refused to investigate the Secret Service’s role in the violent removal of protesters from Lafayette Square on June 1.

The top federal watchdog for the Secret Service blocked an investigation into how the agency handled George Floyd protests in Washington, D.C., last summer, according to The Washington Post. Department of Homeland Security staff reportedly urged the agency’s inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, to look at the Secret Service’s role in the violent removal of protesters from Lafayette Square on June 1—an operation designed to allow President Donald Trump to stage a Bible-clutching photo-op. According to the report, Cuffari also hampered a probe into whether the Secret Service broke federal COVID-19 protocols and put staff members at risk of getting sick. Erica Paulson, a spokeswoman for the IG, said: “Our office does not have the resources to approve every oversight proposal... In both of these cases, we determined that resources would have a higher impact elsewhere.” Nick Schwellenbach, an investigator at the Project On Government Oversight, said: “Cuffari pulled his punches on exactly the type of sensitive reviews his office was created to perform.”