By LINDSAY WHITEHURST and GARY FIELDS, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The District of Columbia on Thursday challenged President Donald Trump’s use of the National Guard in Washington, asking a federal court to intervene even as he plans to send troops to other cities in the name of driving down crime.
Brian Schwalb, the district’s elected attorney general, said in a lawsuit that the deployment, which now involves more than 1,000 troops, is an illegal use of the military for domestic law enforcement.
“No American jurisdiction should be involuntarily subjected to military occupation,” Schwalb wrote.
The White House said deploying the Guard to protect federal assets and assist law enforcement is within Trump’s authority as president.
“This lawsuit is nothing more than another attempt — at the detriment of D.C. residents and visitors — to undermine the President’s highly successful operations to stop violent crime in D.C.,” spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said.
Members of the D.C. National Guard have had their orders extended through December, according to a Guard official. While that does not necessarily mean all those troops will serve that long, it is a strong indication that their role will not wind down soon.
The Republican president has credited the weekslong surge in Washington with reining in crime and said he plans to send the National Guard into Chicago and Baltimore, despite staunch opposition in those Democrat-led cities. In the nation’s capital, Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, has backed up some of Trump’s claims that crime is down during the takeover. Still, data shows and critics argue that crime was already falling before the surge.
Bowser said Thursday that her focus is on preparing for when the emergency ends, which under the law would be Sept. 10, unless Congress extends it. In the order she issued this week, that preparation centered on how the District could best coordinate with and communicate with the federal law enforcement agencies that will likely remain in contact with the city’s citizens.
A federal judge in California ruled on Tuesday that Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles after protests over immigration raids in June was illegal. It does not directly apply to Washington, where the president has more control over the Guard than in states.
Several GOP-led states have added National Guard troops to the ranks of those patrolling the streets and neighborhoods of the nation’s capital.
Schwalb’s filing contends the deployment also violates Washington’s Home Rule Act, signed by President Richard Nixon in 1973, and wrongly asserts federal control over units from other states.
The lawsuit is the second from Schwalb — whose office is separate from Washington’s federal U.S. attorney, a presidential appointee — against the Trump administration since Trump asserted control over the city’s police department and sent in the Guard. Those actions have been met with protests from some residents.
Violent crime has been an issue in the capital for years, though data showed it was on the decline when Trump intervened with an executive order on Aug. 11.
Bowser has pointed to a steep drop in offenses such as carjackings since it began, while also expressing reservations about the use of the Guard from other states.
There are clear divides between some D.C. Council members and Bowser, whom critics have accused of acquiescing to the administration.
Speaking at a Free DC “Federal Forces Out Now” news conference on Capitol Hill, one councilmember, Robert White, said his own young daughters do not see the military personnel and officers as protectors.
“They are here to catch them, to condemn them, to take away their rights,” he said.
White said when history is written about this moment “we will have to justify what we did and did not do. I’m not prepared to say that I capitulated. I’m prepared to stay the course. I’m not prepared to say I went along to get along.”
He encouraged the D.C. Council, Congress, the mayor and the district’s attorney general to “stand together not in fear, not in compliance, but against an authoritarian takeover of our city.”
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