Washington’s top elected officials pushed back Thursday against President Donald Trump’s declaration of a “public safety emergency” and federal law enforcement surge, warning that the measures have undermined public trust and threatened the city’s autonomy.
“Sending masked agents in unmarked cars to pick people up off the streets; flooding our neighborhoods with armed National Guardsmen untrained in local policing; attempting a federal takeover of our police force — none of these are durable, lasting solutions,” D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb said Thursday at a House Oversight Committee hearing, ABC News reports.
The hearing became heated as Republicans highlighted Trump’s crackdown while Democrats raised concerns over costs, civil liberties, and the political motivations behind his actions.
D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, meanwhile, dismissed Trump’s declaration as “a manufactured crime crisis to justify an intrusion on the district’s autonomy,” noting that violent crime is at its lowest level in three decades.
National Guard troops, he said, were often “picking up trash and doing landscaping” instead of policing.
Mayor Muriel Bowser joined city leaders in urging Congress to address court vacancies in Washington and to support new youth treatment centers.
She stressed that with the nation’s 250th anniversary approaching, the nation’s capital must be “the safest and most beautiful it’s been at any point in its history.”
Republicans, however, argued that Trump’s orders produced measurable results.
According to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., the operation led to a 39% drop in violent crime, a 57% decline in robberies, and a 75% decrease in carjackings.
He added that more than 2,300 arrests were made, including the detention of nearly 950 people by immigration authorities and the rescue of seven missing children.
Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., further suggested that district officials were “cooking the books” on crime statistics and accused the Metropolitan Police Department of manipulation, but Schwalb rejected those claims, pointing to an 84% prosecution rate for violent youth cases last year, including more than 90% of homicides.
Democrats further raised questions about the $200 million cost of deploying the National Guard. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., displayed photos of National Guard troops mowing lawns and hauling trash.
“Honorable work, certainly, but this is not why the taxpayers fund the National Guard,” he said.
Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the ranking Democrat on the committee, also accused Trump of political interference.
“If President Trump wants to run Washington, D.C., he should resign as president and run for mayor,” Garcia said, adding that some of the “worst crime and corruption” in the city was in the White House and citing Trump’s pardons of Jan. 6 rioters and alleged cover-ups of the Epstein files.
The hearing was also combative at times. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., pressed Bowser with questions about gender definitions in the city’s criminal code.
“Mayor Bowser, what is a woman?” she asked.
Bowser replied: “I’m a woman. Are you a woman?”
Mace answered, “A hundred percent, I’m a woman.”
Bowser responded: “You’re looking at one.”
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