CREW requests records on Trump’s DC takeover
CREW filed expedited Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with ten federal agencies in an attempt to establish the cost to taxpayers of President Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and federal agents in DC and determine which units within the agencies were reassigned to prioritize the DC takeover, which local government has called unlawful and successfully challenged in court. CREW is also requesting records on all training provided to troops and federal agents in advance of their deployment in addition to all relevant communications around each agency’s role in these operations.
On August 11, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring a “crime emergency” in the District of Columbia, despite declining crime rates in the city. He announced that the federal government would be taking control of the Metropolitan Police Department, deploying National Guard troops and reassigning federal law enforcement to patrol the city under the oversight of the Department of Justice.
CREW requested records from the federal agencies involved with this executive action, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, US Park Police, US Capitol Police, US Marshals Service, United States Secret Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, US Customs and Border Protection and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The people of DC and all Americans urgently need answers as Trump’s unprecedented imposition of federal power undercuts DC’s sovereignty, raises legitimate safety concerns and continues Trump’s moves toward authoritarianism. DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb filed an emergency lawsuit challenging the attempted takeover of MPD, calling it “the gravest threat to Home Rule that the District has ever faced,” and in a declaration in the case, MPD Chief Pamela Smith said she had “never seen a single government action that would cause a greater threat to law and order than this dangerous directive.” This mobilization of federal agents also imperils marginalized people and communities, including unhoused people, immigrants and youth of color across the city. In the coming days, National Guard troops are preparing to carry weapons, further intensifying safety concerns.
Especially in light of the Trump administration’s substantial cuts to public funding of government agencies in the name of efficiency, all American taxpayers have a right to know how much this militarized mobilization in the nation’s capital will cost.