DC mayor requests Trump ‘withdraw all extraordinary federal law enforcement and military presence’

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) has requested that President Trump “withdraw all extraordinary federal law enforcement and military presence” from the nation’s capital after the president mobilized the forces to deal with protests over the police killing of George Floyd. 

In a letter to Trump Friday morning, Bowser announced that she had “ended the state of emergency in the District of Columbia related to demonstrations.”

Bowser noted that protests have been “peaceful” and that the Metropolitan Police Department did not make “a single arrest” Thursday night, the second straight evening without an arrest related to the protests.

The mayor also drew attention to the “unidentified federal personnel” who have been in the District all week, saying that they “pose both safety and national security risks.”

“The deployment of federal law enforcement personnel and equipment are inflaming demonstrators and adding to the grievances of those who, by and large, are peacefully protesting for change and reforms to the racist and broken systems that are killing Black Americans,” Bowser said.

I request that @realDonaldTrump withdraw all extraordinary federal law enforcement and military presence from our city. pic.twitter.com/AvaJfQ0mxP

— Mayor Muriel Bowser #StayHomeDC (@MayorBowser) June 5, 2020

Trump has received a growing amount of pushback for his response to the nationwide protests in the week and a half since Floyd was killed.

The District has a National Guard, but since it isn’t a state, the force is federally controlled. Trump deployed federal troops earlier this week and encouraged governors to mobilize their National Guard forces as well, telling them that they need to “dominate” protesters.

A number of retired military generals, including James Mattis and William Perry, have issued scathing rebukes of Trump’s crackdown on demonstrators in D.C.

“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us,” Mattis, who served as Trump’s Defense secretary, wrote earlier in the week. “We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership.”

Perry, a former Defense secretary from the Clinton administration, said in a separate statement, “The U.S. military is a powerful force that has served our nation well, in war and in peace. But it was never intended to be used against American citizens, and it was never intended to be used for partisan political purposes.”