TOPLINE
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that federal officials, including at the White House, raised the idea with District of Columbia officials of taking over the local police department, according to Mayor Muriel Bowser’s chief of staff.
A large law enforcement response near the White House after a protest was dispersed Monday.
KEY FACTS
Bowser’s chief of staff, John Falcicchio told the Post that D.C. officials objected, and said they would mount a legal challenge if federal officials made an attempt to do so.
The District of Columbia is governed by its own mayor and city council, but federal law gives the president the ability to take over local police in emergency situations.
Bowser did not directly confirm the request to reporters, the Post reported, but was firmly against it: “I would regard that as an affront to even our limited home rule and the safety of the District of Columbia,” she said.
Earlier on Tuesday, House Oversight Committee Chair Gerald Connolly, D-Va., requested documents from the Secret Service about their presence at Trump’s church visit, and whether they directed the use of tear gas and rubber bullets against peaceful protesters.
The development comes amid fallout from Monday night’s protests at the capitol, in which protesters were tear gassed by military police as part of an effort to clear the area around St. John’s Episcopal Church (and clergy cleared from the church grounds) which President Trump visited after his Rose Garden address for a much-maligned photo op.
The Post, in a separate Tuesday report, said Attorney General Bill Barr personally asked for protesters to be cleared from the area around the church before Trump gave his Rose Garden address.
Chief Critic
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser told CNN that she and district officials “were very shocked, and quite frankly outraged, that people who were not violating the curfew and who did not seem to have provoked attack were attacked and moved out by federal law enforcement officials to clear the way for the president.”
Key background
As protests sparked by the death of George Floyd entered their seventh night, Trump made a White House speech proclaiming himself a “law and order president” as police clashed with protesters in the nearby streets. Trump said he might invoke a centuries-old law, the Insurrection Act, to deploy the U.S. military to states that could not quell civil unrest, such as looting and property destruction. Bowser had set a 7 p.m. curfew for the district, but police began forcing protesters from the area around St. John’s about a half hour prior. Tear gas and flashbangs sent protesters running, and some were yelling “Hands up! Don’t shoot!” at police. After Trump concluded his address, he walked with Attorney General Bill Bar, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, senior White House advisor Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka Trump to the church. Once there, Trump proceeded to hold up a Bible in what appeared to be a staged photo opportunity. Religious leaders resoundingly denounced the move. “He did not seek to unify the country, but rather he used our symbols and our sacred space as a way to reinforce a message that is antithetical to everything that the person of Jesus,” Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of D.C.’s Episcopal Diocese told NPR.
Further reading
D.C. mayor’s office says federal officials floated idea of taking over D.C. police (Washington Post)
Inside the push to tear-gas protesters ahead of a Trump photo op (Washington Post)
Trump Says He May Invoke The Obscure Insurrection Act To Quell Protests—Here’s What That Means (Forbes)
Before Trump's Photo-Op, Police Forcibly Removed Priest From Church Grounds (Forbes)
