DC, Trump administration clash in court over National Guard deployment in the District
Over two months after the deployment of National Guard into D.C., attorneys representing the District and President Donald Trump’s administration spared in U.S. District Court on Friday on the troop’s continued stay in the nation’s capital.
By the end of the over two-and-a-half-hour hearing, Judge Jia Cobb elected not to rule on the case, saying she would review the arguments before making a ruling.
D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued the Trump administration in September, requesting an injunction that would remove more than 2,000 Guard members and send them back to their home states.
It stems from President Donald Trump’s executive order declaring a crime emergency in the District in August. Within a month, more than 2,300 Guard troops from eight states and D.C. were patrolling under the Army secretary’s command. Trump also deployed hundreds of federal agents to assist them.
Legal showdown over deployment
In court Friday, attorneys defending the District argued there is no statute for the continued deployment in D.C. and Trump is limited in what he can deploy troops for.
Based on previous militia laws, the president lacks authority in controlling Guard members from other states.
Attorney Mitchell Reich representing the District said another state’s troops cannot be sent to D.C. to police its citizens without consent. He argued that the Home Rule Act gave D.C. some sovereignty that requires some notice before deployment.
Lastly, D.C. attorneys said the Guard’s continued presence in D.C. will bring harm to the city economically with a weaker tourism season, while ruining the reputation of the city’s law enforcement. Reich said members of D.C. police are wasting resources having to train Guard members to police residents they shouldn’t be policing.
Instead, Reich argued that resources that have been moved around to ensure the National Guard is able to do their jobs effectively is threatening public safety.
In response, attorney Eric Hamilton representing the Justice Department said the president is the commander in chief of the D.C. National Guard; he has broad scope in deploying those troops into the District; and the mayor has no veto power. He added that troops are only supporting police and not participating in law enforcement roles, such as making arrests, charges and search and seizure.
Hamilton called Schwalb’s lawsuit a “political stunt” after filing it a day after an executive order by Mayor Muriel Bowser establishing a center that manages the federal government’s involvement in law enforcement in the city.
However, Judge Cobb asked the Justice Department attorneys multiple times about the limitations in the president’s use of the National Guard in the District. They responded that he has broad authority based on the powers given to him by Congress, and that D.C. is not a state and has no sovereignty.
Court documents filed before the hearing suggest troops have been instructed to prepare for “long-term persistent presence” in the District, possibly through next summer in conjunction with the “America 250” celebration.
Hamilton confirmed emails were sent out stating there may be a possible extension beyond Nov. 30, but a final end date was never slated.
Free DC rally calls for Guard members ‘to go home’
Prior to the hearing, the Free D.C. organization set up a rally outside of the courthouse, calling for the end of “the occupation” from the Guard in D.C. Multiple demonstrators brought signs telling the Guard to leave, as they sang songs and marched toward the 3rd Street entrance to the courthouse, blocking traffic for several minutes.
Slobodan Milic, who has lived in the District full time for three years, told WTOP that having troops in D.C. doesn’t strike confidence among residents. He recalled having to explain to his children why they were seeing Guard members holding guns and long weapons.
“They don’t want to be here,” Milic said. “It’s not good for their reputation. It’s not good for the spirit of the armed forces to be viewed as politicized and instrumentalized by the government.”
Following the hearing, Schwalb told the media that D.C. is not safer with out-of-state Guard members who are not trained to do policing and aren’t familiar with the area like D.C. police.
Reports of Guards members doing beautification projects in D.C. and picking up trash are not “a good use of their time, and it’s not what they signed up to do,” he said.
“The military has no business doing civilian policing of Americans on American soil,” Schwalb said. “That’s the key issue in this case, an issue that we have been confident on the law since we filed the lawsuit. … It’s time for us to have the National Guardsmen allowed to go home to their homes.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.