WHAT'S BREWING
WARREN CALLS FOR DOJ PROBE INTO BARR'S ORDER REMOVING PROTESTERS Sen. Elizabeth Warren called for an investigation following the violent dispersal of protesters near the White House amid reports Attorney General William Barr personally ordered federal officers to remove them. The Massachusetts Democrat wrote to the inspector general at the Department of Justice saying she was appalled after largely peaceful protesters gathered in Lafayette Park were confronted by federal police wielding tear gas and flash-bang grenades before Trump's stroll to a church for a photo op. [HuffPost]
SENATE GOP-ERS BRUSH ASIDE TRUMP'S VIOLENCE AGAINST PROTESTERS Top Senate Republicans brushed aside the use of force against hundreds of peaceful protesters gathered to demand an end to police brutality against Black Americans near the White House. Some questioned whether it was a real protest in the first place. “That wasn’t even a protest ― that was a provocation that was created deliberately for national television,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters on Capitol Hill. “Tell me those are real protesters and not professional agitators,” Rubio added. [HuffPost]
GIANFORTE WINS IN MONTANA'S REPUBLICAN GOVERNOR PRIMARY U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte defeated Attorney General Tim Fox to win the Republican nomination for Montana governor. Gianforte will face the winner of the Democratic primary between Lt. Gov. Mike Cooney and first-time candidate Whitney Williams. The victory gives him another shot at a seat he failed to win four years ago despite spending millions of dollars of his own money. Gianforte is perhaps best known outside Montana for assaulting a reporter the day before a 2017 special election to fill Montana’s vacant U.S. House seat. [HuffPost]
GEORGE W. BUSH: GEORGE FLOYD'S DEATH MEANS IT'S TIME TO LISTEN Former President George W. Bush released a statement about the police killing of George Floyd but emphasized it wasn’t his place to say how the country should handle its systemic racism problem. Instead, he said, it was time for Americans to recognize “the repeated violation” of the rights of Black Americans who didn’t get “an urgent and adequate response from American institutions” in a statement posted on the George W. Bush Presidential Center website. Bush is the second president, after an essay Monday by Barack Obama, to speak out about Floyd. [HuffPost]
FACEBOOK ENGINEER RESIGNS OVER HANDLING OF TRUMP POSTS Timothy Aveni, Facebook engineer who works to combat the spread of misinformation on the platform, is resigning over how CEO Mark Zuckerberg has handled Trump’s “increasingly dangerous rhetoric.” “For years, President Trump has enjoyed an exception to Facebook’s Community Standards; over and over he posts abhorrent, targeted messages that would get any other Facebook user suspended from the platform,” Aveni wrote on Facebook. “Mark always told us that he would draw the line at speech that calls for violence. He showed us on Friday that this was a lie." [HuffPost]
LA RESIDENTS FLOOD ZOOM MEETINGS WITH CALLS FOR LAPD CHIEF TO RESIGN Los Angeles residents flooded a public Zoom meeting with anger and frustration on Tuesday over the city’s response to ongoing protests following the death of George Floyd. Hundreds of citizens called in to the Los Angeles Police Commission’s first virtual meeting since the demonstrations began. For more than eight hours, dozens of residents repeatedly called on Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore to resign after he made comments on Monday blaming looters for “capitalizing” on the man’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer last week. [HuffPost] | 
