Mayor Muriel Bowser disputes Donald Trump’s emergency narrative, citing crime decline; critics call deployment a political power play.
Some of the 800 National Guard members deployed by US President Donald Trump have started arriving in the nation’s capital, ramping up after the White House ordered federal forces to take over the city’s police department and reduce crime in what the president called – without substantiation – a lawless city.
The influx on Tuesday came the morning after Trump announced he would be activating the guard members and taking over the department. He cited a crime emergency – but referred to the same crime that city officials stress is already falling noticeably.
The president holds the legal right to make such moves – to a point.
The law lets Trump control the police department for a month, but how aggressive the federal presence will be and how it could play out remained open questions as the city’s mayor and police chief went to the Justice Department to meet with the attorney general.
