The attorney general for Washington, D.C., has sued the Trump administration over the deployment of National Guard troops throughout the city amid its crackdown on local crime.
Brian Schwalb, the city’s attorney general, said that by sending hundreds of troops into the nation’s capital, the administration has “run roughshod” over the long-standing tenet that the U.S. military should not be involved in domestic law enforcement.
“None of this is lawful,” he wrote in a lawsuit filed Thursday that asks a judge to block the deployment.
A federal judge in California recently ruled that Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles after immigration protests turned violent in June was unlawful, which the administration has appealed.
However, the president’s command over the National Guard extends further in Washington than in states.
Still, D.C. contends Trump took that control too far.
The city claims the administration’s deployment of National Guard units to police Washington streets without the consent of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser violates the Home Rule Act and exceeds the authority bestowed upon the president by Congress.
It also argued Trump’s close control over National Guard troops from other states is illegal.
Governors from several Republican-led states sent National Guard troops to assist with the president’s mission to decrease crime under Title 32, meaning the troops are under local authority but federally funded.
It also means those troops are not subject to the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 statute that generally bars federal troops from participating in civilian law enforcement, because they are technically under a governor’s command — despite receiving their mission from the White House.
If National Guard troops are put under federal command, as they were in Los Angeles, they are bound by the nearly 150-year-old law.
The complaint points to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s order authorizing some troops to carry weapons as they patrol streets as an example of the apparent federalization in all but name.
“The President has not federalized any of the out-of-state forces he has foisted on the District,” Schwalb wrote. “The federal government therefore may not lawfully command them or control their day-to-day operations, as it is doing here.”
The “unwanted” deployment has harmed the economy and threatens to begin “eroding trust and inflaming tensions” between local police and the community, the city argued.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement that Trump is “well within” his lawful authority to deploy the National Guard in D.C. to “protect federal assets and assist law enforcement with specific tasks.”
“This lawsuit is nothing more than another attempt — at the detriment of DC residents and visitors — to undermine the President’s highly successful operations to stop violent crime in DC,” she said.
Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops in Washington has been extended through December to ensure service members receive the full scope of benefits for the mission, multiple news outlets reported Thursday.
He announced the deployment in early August, and by September, more than 3,300 federal law enforcement from 22 agencies patrol the streets nightly. More than 1,700 arrests have been made as part of the crackdown and more than 190 firearms have been seized, according to the White House.
Trump has signaled he may send the National Guard to other cities, namely Chicago, which Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has said his blue state would forcefully oppose. The president also appeared to instead consider next sending troops to a red state, floating New Orleans as a possible target.
Updated at 12:33 p.m. EDT