Trump Escalates Authoritarian Crackdown by Federalizing D.C. Police, Deploying National Guard
WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Donald Trump just announced that his administration is taking over D.C. police and deploying the National Guard to the nation’s capital, allegedly to eliminate crime and homelessness in the city.
In response to Trump’s announcement, Public Citizen co-presidents Lisa Gilbert and Robert Weissman issued the following statement:
“Donald Trump is federalizing control of the local police and deploying the National Guard in Washington, D.C. to further his authoritarian and anti-democratic agenda.
“As autocrats commonly do, Trump is seeking control over the national capital in order to intimidate and squelch dissent. Like despots around the world and throughout history, Trump is also relying on the pretextual deployment of military force to intimidate and project power, to suppress protest and undercut democracy.
“This is a move of dubious legality and no necessity. Trump aims to distract from his political weakness and he’s doing it at the expense of residents of the District of Columbia and their wellbeing. The people of Washington, D.C., not to mention the people of the United States, deserve better.
“There is no street crime epidemic in Washington, with the violent street crime rate at its lowest point in decades.
“There is, in fact, a major corporate crime problem in Washington, but the administration is making that far worse, by ending investigations and prosecutions, announcing no-prosecute policies, and redirecting law enforcement resources away from corporate crime and towards its mass deportation agenda.
“There is, in fact, a significant housing problem in Washington, D.C., like there is throughout the nation. But telling people without housing that they have to “move out” of the District, as Trump has done, does nothing to actually address that problem.
“Investing more in housing would help, but there were no such investments in Trump’s tax and budget reconciliation bill – indeed, quite the opposite. Providing support to people with addiction would also help address the homelessness challenge; instead, the administration is considering withholding already appropriated funding for responding to fentanyl overdoses.
“Washington, D.C. does not need National Guard members – who signed up to address genuine national security threats and actual emergencies, not to be political pawns – on our streets. Instead, what we in D.C. need is representation in Congress and more federal funding to mitigate the restrictions on the District’s power of taxation.”