Live updates: Trump to deploy National Guard and federalize D.C. police as part of crime-fighting effort
Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said he plans to introduce a bill to undo Trump’s move to federalize the Washington, D.C., police department, calling it “a textbook authoritarian maneuver” that “has nothing to do with fighting crime.” “I will be introducing a Resolution in the House, pursuant…
Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said he plans to introduce a bill to undo Trump’s move to federalize the Washington, D.C., police department, calling it “a textbook authoritarian maneuver” that “has nothing to do with fighting crime.”
“I will be introducing a Resolution in the House, pursuant to the District of Columbia Home Rule Act of 1973, to reverse this plainly ridiculous state of local emergency and restore full home rule powers to the Mayor, Council and people of the District of Columbia,” he said in a statement.
Raskin’s resolution is unlikely to go anywhere in the Republican-controlled House. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Oversight Committee chairman James Comer, R-Ky., both praised Trump’s decision in statements today.
Raskin argued that going after crime in Washington is an ironic move for Trump.
“It is at least heartening to have the President recognize what was obvious to the world on January 6, 2021, which is that he has the authority to call up the National Guard in Washington, D.C. … However, this action is four-and-a-half years late and obviously nonsensical today,” Raskin said.
“Since taking office,” Raskin continued, “Trump has repeatedly undermined public safety in our nation’s capital. On his first day, without consulting District leaders or the hundreds of police victims, Trump pardoned and released from prisons and jails 1,600 individuals who participated in the worst mass domestic violent attack on the U.S. Capitol and D.C.’s local police in American history, including several hundreds convicted of beating cops. Then he began firing D.C.’s most experienced career violent crime prosecutors simply because they had prosecuted the cop-beating January 6 insurrectionists whom Trump pardoned.”