DC leaders push back against Trump’s ‘public safety emergency’ before Oversight Committee

(WASHINGTON) — Republicans pressed Washington, D.C.’s top elected officials on crime in the District Thursday while Democrats focused on the White House’s law enforcement surge into the capital, the Epstein files and D.C. statehood during a House Oversight Committee hearing Thursday.

D.C. leaders warned that Trump’s federal law enforcement surge has undermined public trust and threatened the city’s autonomy, even as they pressed Congress to help the District rebuild its police force and fill critical judicial vacancies.

“Sending masked agents in unmarked cars to pick people up off the streets; flooding our neighborhoods with armed national guardsmen untrained in local policing; attempting a federal takeover of our police force — none of these are durable, lasting solutions for driving down crime,” D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb said. “In fact, this threatens to destroy critical trust between local communities and police, which is essential to effective, efficient policing and prosecution.”

D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson called the Trump’s emergency declaration “a manufactured crime crisis to justify an intrusion on the District’s autonomy.”

“At a time when violent crime is at the lowest rate we’ve seen in 30 years, there is no federal emergency that the District needs the president to address,” he said, adding that National Guard troops lack law-enforcement training and have instead been “picking up trash and doing landscaping.”

D.C. officials have maintained that crime in D.C. has fallen dramatically over the last few years, even before the surge, but several Republicans on the committee suggested that D.C. was “cooking the books” on its crime rates as they touted the success of the surge.

Republican Rep. Paul Gosar pointed to an ongoing investigation into crime statistics allegedly altered by Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department, saying that earning back trust “does not happen just by blatantly manipulating crime statistics, seeking politically motivated litigation and spending irresponsibly. Mayor Bowser, I must say, I never felt safer in D.C., there’s a record low crime rate.”

Schwalb pushed back against claims that juveniles offenders are not being prosecuted in Washington. He said his office brought charges in 84% of all violent youth cases last year, which included more than 90% of homicides, 87% of carjackings and 86% of gun cases.

Schwalb, Mendelson and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser urged Congress to restore funding to help address longstanding vacancies on the D.C. courts and to fund a new psychiatric residential treatment facility for youth to fight crime.

Marking the upcoming 250th anniversary of the U.S. next year, Bowser said, “We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the nation’s capital to be the safest and most beautiful it’s been at any point in its history, not just for our residents, but for the millions of Americans who will come to Washington, D.C., to celebrate our country’s heritage.”

Bowser had a contentious exchange with GOP Rep. Nancy Mace over gender definitions in D.C.’s criminal code, with Mace finally asking her “Mayor Bowser, what is a woman?”

“I’m a woman. Are you a woman?” Bowser replied.

“100%, I’m a woman,” Mace responded.

“You’re looking at one,” Bowser said.

House Oversight Chairman Rep. James Comer praised the effectiveness of the surge.

“It’s been one week since the conclusion of President Trump’s historic crackdown on crime in our nation’s capital, and the results are in: since President Trump mobilized the National Guard and took control of the Metropolitan Police Department, violent crime has decreased 39% robberies are down 57% and carjackings are down 75% over 2,300 people have been arrested,” Comer said. “Nearly 950 illegal aliens have been detained by ICE, including 20 gang members from violent terrorist organizations.”

“Sex offenders have been taken off the streets. Authorities thwarted a planned school shooting, cleared 50 illegal tent encampments and rescued seven missing children,” he said.

Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi questioned the cost of the National Guard deployment and questioned if the $200 million cost to taxpayers was being spent on fighting crime.

“Let’s see how this money is being used — Trump says it’s for fighting crime,” he said before showing photos of Guard members, “but here’s a guardsman carrying trash, here’s a guardsman mowing the lawn. Here’s a very nice gentleman, a guardsman carrying a leaf blower.”

“Honorable work, certainly, but this is not why the taxpayers fund the National Guard,” he said. “If Trump was serious about crime, he wouldn’t cut nearly $4 million in federal funding for local violence prevention groups in Chicago.”

And Ranking Democrat Robert Garcia sharply criticized Trump’s motivation for the surge.

“President Trump is obsessed with trying to run Washington, D.C., and if President Trump wants to run Washington D.C., he should resign as president and run for mayor.”

“We should, of course, all of us spend our time working with local elected officials. And Congress should not be undermining the elected representatives and the people of Washington, D.C., and if the majority today wants to talk about crime in D.C., in the District, we’re happy to talk about crime in D.C. we know that some of the worst crime and corruption in D.C. is actually found at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” he said.

Garcia then brought up Trump’s pardons for Jan. 6 insurrectionists and the Epstein files.

“In his first days in office, Donald Trump pardoned hundreds of his followers who beat, tased and attacked brave D.C. and U.S. Capitol Police. And right now, since we’re talking about crime and corruption in DC as we speak, Trump is leading a White House cover up of the Epstein files,” Garcia said.

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