President Trump’s takeover of D.C. has amplified serious concerns about the danger of domestic military deployment, encroachment on D.C. home rule and lack of transparency and accountability surrounding these deployments, according to a statement for the record submitted to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform by CREW’s Executive Director and Chief Counsel Donald Sherman.

President Trump’s weaponization of the military apparatus in D.C. is a startling escalation of federal overreach that targets ordinary Americans. In the context of President Trump’s election-sabotage efforts during his first term, failure to activate the National Guard during the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and the current administration’s attempted intrusion into election administration, his current activation of the D.C. National Guard should be understood as an attempt to normalize the deployment of military personnel in our streets for potential future antidemocratic or election-sabotage maneuvers. Congress must take seriously the threat that President Trump may deploy the National Guard in a future effort to overturn lawful election results, prevent election certification and interfere with the peaceful transfer of power.

Using the pretext of public safety, Trump’s takeover has also undermined D.C.’s sovereignty by exceeding the authority that Congress granted the president under Section 740 of the Home Rule Act. As a result, children on the way to school are walking past armed National Guard troops, street traffic is halted for indiscriminate federal checkpoints, many residents are scared to go to work and restaurant reservations are plummeting as businesses suffer.  Although D.C. residents overwhelmingly oppose this takeover of their city, they have limited political power to push back without proper representation in Congress. 

In addition to the threat to democracy and local autonomy that President Trump’s incursion on D.C. presents, the Trump administration has been secretive about the costs of its actions. The administration has yet to produce documents CREW requested last month under the Freedom of Information Act seeking records that reflect how much federal agencies are spending and what law enforcement assets they are diverting from core national security functions as a result of the takeover.

For the sake of democracy, protecting D.C.’s autonomy and giving the American public the answers they deserve, Congress must stand up to Trump’s authoritarian power grab now. 

Read the testimony here.

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