The city of Washington filed a lawsuit Thursday against U.S. President Donald Trump over the deployment of the National Guard in the capital.
The lawsuit, filed by U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Brian Schwalb, urges the D.C. District Court to declare that the president’s decision was unconstitutional and against federal law.
Among the defendants are members of the U.S. Administration linked to this decision such as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, the U.S. Army, and the Departments of Justice and Defense.
He denounces Trump’s decision to deploy the troops “without the express consent of the mayor” of the city, as well as other decisions regarding the force, such as having members of the National Guard patrol armed.
Thus, it asks the Court to “permanently enjoin” Trump’s order.
This complaint comes days after a federal judge ruled that the president violated federal law by deploying the National Guard to Los Angeles, also without the consent of local authorities.
The San Francisco magistrate found that the president’s decision violated the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal rule that prohibits the use of the Army and Air Force for domestic law enforcement except as expressly authorized by the Constitution or an act of Congress.
The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia refers to the same regulation in the complaint filed Thursday to stop the troops in the capital.
“(Trump) has overlooked a fundamental tenet of American democracy: that the military should not be involved in law enforcement within the homeland,” Schwalb wrote in the injunction.
In his view, “no U.S. jurisdiction should be involuntarily subjected to military occupation.”
Last August 11, Trump took control of Washington’s security, initially for 30 days, under the law that allows him to intervene in the city’s authority on the grounds that there is an “emergency” due to high crime.
In addition, he activated 800 members of the National Guard, which added to those of six Republican-governed states that have decided to send more troops means that there are more than 2,000 members of this unit alone patrolling the city.
Last week it announced that it was taking control of Washington’s central station, known as Union Station, as part of its strategy to increase control over the capital.
Trump has already targeted Chicago and New Orleans as possible next cities to deploy the National Guard, ignoring the response from the judiciary and local authorities, who reject the idea, EFE reported.
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