Trump's Secret Service director called to brief Congress about violent dispersal of peaceful protesters near White House

House Democratic chairman 'stunned, disturbed, and furious' at sight of law enforcement firing tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash bang grenades on peaceful protesters to clear path for president

House Democrats are demanding that Secret Service Director James M. Murray appear before Congress to brief lawmakers about Donald Trump's short walk to St John's Church in Washington, DC, for a photo op on Monday after mounted law enforcement officers deployed tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash bang grenades against peaceful protesters to clear a path for the president.

"I request to receive a briefing no later than June 5, 2020, to understand the role of the United States Secret Service in planning, coordinating and executing these actions," House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson wrote to Mr Murray in a letter obtained by The Independent.

Mr Thompson wrote that while he understood Secret Service agents have faced "difficult decisions" as they've responded to acts of violence at otherwise peaceful protests at the White House in recent days, he was "stunned, disturbed, and furious at the sight of federal authorities tear-gassing peaceful protesters" near Lafayette Square just north of the White House on Monday minutes before DC's 7 p.m. curfew.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said earlier on Tuesday that he expects the Homeland Security panel and possibly the Judiciary and Oversight Committees to probe Mr Trump's walk to the famed church, which occurred shortly after the curfew, and the police actions to clear the streets beforehand.

“I would expect the appropriate committees to look at this, whether it's Judiciary, Homeland Security, Oversight. All the facts that you just mentioned we ought to deduce,” Mr Hoyer told reporters on Tuesday.

“I would hope that the committees would look at what directions [Mr Trump] gave” regarding law enforcement's heavy-handed street clearance, Mr Hoyer said.

Mr Hoyer did not commit to bringing the House back before its next scheduled session later this month to censure Mr Trump for his walk to the church and potentially directing law enforcement to take the actions it did.

"It is certainly an action worthy and appropriate to censure and to criticise. It was a terrible act," Mr Hoyer said.

"It was an act indicating the total lack of understanding and empathy with the anger and frustration and cry for justice that was being put out — simply to facilitate a photo up obviously designed for political purposes, not designed to bring the country together," Mr Hoyer said.

While Democrats have roundly criticised Mr Trump for his militant approach to the protests and his walk to St John's on Monday, most Republican senators have mostly either declined to comment on law enforcement's tactics to clear the path of peaceful protesters or lauded Mr Trump for the decision to walk to the church.

Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, however, issued a rare GOP rebuke of Mr Trump for his actions on Monday evening, when he posed before TV cameras and photojournalists with a bible in his right hand and with St John's in the background.

"There is a fundamental — a Constitutional — right to protest, and I’m against clearing out a peaceful protest for a photo op that treats the Word of God as a political prop,” Mr Sasse said in a statement to Politico.

Before embarking on his walk on Monday, Mr Trump gave a speech at the White House Rose Garden threatening to deploy “heavily armed” US military troops to cities to crush violent elements of protests that have swept the nation in the wake of the death of George Floyd last week in Minneapolis.

The president said he would send in troops even if mayors and governors objected, an action that *could run afoul of* guardrails against the executive branch sending active duty military units to uphold civil laws on US soil.

In a phone conversation with governors earlier in the day, Mr Trump stressed the need to "dominate" the streets with a strong law enforcement presence of police officers and National Guardsmen. He called governors "weak" for their response to widespread pockets of violence, looting, and vandalism that have marked many of the protests over the last several days.

While Mr Trump has said he will "stand with" the family of Mr Floyd — who died last week in Minneapolis after police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck and back for several minutes despite Mr Floyd's pleas that he couldn't breathe — the prevailing message from the White House has been that states must do more to curb riotous behaviour.

The president has said he will designate the loose collection of militant left-wing, anti-fascist demonstrators known as "Antifa" as a terrorist organisation in addition to his threat to deploy US military units to areas of the country where protest have gotten out of hand.

Attorney General William Barr has ordered US Bureau of Prisons riot squads to DC and Miami to quell pockets of violence that have raged in those cities in recent days.

The administration is "looking at every tool in the federal tool kit for us" to shut down violent protesters, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters on Monday.

"Ideally this would have been resolved at the state level. The states, after all, have police power embedded in the 10th Amendment. It is their responsibility to patrol their streets,” she said.