Call it plategate.
Limos used by President Trump no longer have license plates with DC’s unofficial motto, “End Taxation Without Representation.”
The change to plain plates was made quietly in August 2018 by then-White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, a White House official told The Post.
It’s unclear why Kelly ordered the plates removed, and if Trump was even aware of the decision. The ex-chief of staff told The Post he “has no idea” what the White House is talking about.
The issue of DC statehood has roiled Capitol residents for decades. Though they vote and pay federal taxes, Washingtonians have no representation in the Senate and only one non-voting member in the House of Representatives.
Support for DC statehood has historically fallen along partisan lines, with Democrats generally in favor of granting representation to the deep-blue city, and Republicans balking.
Presidents of both parties have weighed in on the matter in the form of presidential plates.
Bill Clinton first put them on shortly before he left office; they were later removed by George W. Bush. President Obama restored the plates in 2013 — and DC blogs noticed when President Trump elected to keep them throughout 2017.
Trump has sent mixed messages on the issue. In a 2015 interview he said he was in favor of doing “whatever is good for the District of Columbia because I love the people,” A year later he told the Washington Post editorial board that he had no position on the matter and that the issue was “a tough thing for D.C.”
“The quote on our license plates – ‘Taxation Without Representation’ – is a constant reminder … that over 700,000 American citizens living in the Capitol have no voting representation in Congress,” D.C.’s long-serving house delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton told The Post.