What a busy week President Trump is having. Yesterday he “federalized” the District of Columbia police force, effectively ending Home Rule for D.C.’s estimated 695,000 residents. And then there’s his meeting with war criminal and dictator Vladimir Putin in Alaska, where Trump hopes to end the war in Ukraine by declaring Putin the winner. It is almost as though the Jeffrey Epstein scandal is over.
The ghost of Mr. Epstein has not yet been banished, but let’s give the president a gold star (the only type acceptable to him) for trying. Many of us disagree on almost everything with our MAGA friends and neighbors, but we all agree that sexual assault of young girls is heinous.
But what about declaring an emergency to legitimize a federal takeover of D.C.? For me, and many of us on the Eastern Shore who have lived or worked in D.C., this is also heinous.
D.C. crime is not out of control. Violent crime has decreased 26 percent in 2025 compared to 2024. Robberies have decreased by 26 percent. The Trump administration, as you might expect, challenges these statistics, which were reported by the D.C. Metropolitan Police.
Violent crime was and likely would have continued to drop even without the deployment of the National Guard and officers from the Park Police, ATF, Secret Service, ICE, and FBI to the streets of D.C. (I am relieved that U.S. Space Force Guardians are not part of Trump’s show of force.)
I lived in D.C. for several years and worked there for more than 30 years. Like President Trump, I did not like seeing drunks, homeless people, or beggars on the streets, but I never once wanted to see homeless people “removed immediately, far away from our beautiful capital city” or 14-year-olds prosecuted as adults even if charged with violent crimes.
In coming weeks—and maybe even before you read this column—you will read or hear White House officials announce that the takeover of D.C. has resulted in hundreds of arrests and a sharp drop in violent crime. But I also suspect there will be instances of people—some involved in committing crimes—who will be shot and killed and other instances where people will get arrested or “roughed-up,” as the President likes to say. Those instances, representing civil rights violations and police abuse, are not acceptable, to me and many others.
As has already been pointed out, National Guardsmen are not trained police officers. Neither are FBI agents, who, it must be noted, did not seek careers at the Agency to be deployed to fight street crime in D.C. Thus, I worry that many officers, some of whom will be sweltering in bullet-proof vests in 95-degree temperatures, will not be happy. And unhappy police officers are more likely to make bad judgments than appropriately trained happy ones.
I recall driving to work in 2001, right after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. There were National Guardsmen with M-16s on what appeared to be every corner for blocks in downtown Washington. The sight of the U.S. military patrolling D.C. streets was deeply disturbing, but necessary. The 9/11 terrorist attacks were an emergency that necessitated the actions taken. There is no emergency justifying Trump’s actions in D.C.
Trump’s takeover of D.C. will go down in history as unjustified and unwise. Hopefully, that history will not include police violence and unjustified shootings. I also wonder if historians will come to see the “D.C. crackdown” as part of the campaign of distraction now underway directed by a failing 79-year-old president who can’t shake the Epstein scandal.
As someone with special ties to D.C, that include being born there, attending college and law school there, and working there for decades, I want D.C. residents to control their city—just like I want Eastern Shore residents to enjoy self-rule.
Donald Trump is denying Washingtonians a basic right, but he doesn’t care. D.C. voters rejected Trump in 2024. He won only 6.6 percent of the vote, 21,076 votes, as compared to Kamala Harris’ 92.5 percent. D.C. residents are throw-aways to Trump. I can imagine Trump saying they are too stupid be allowed to govern themselves.
J.E. Dean writes on politics, government but, too frequently, on President Trump. A former counsel on Capitol Hill and public affairs consultant, Dean also writes for Dean’s Issues & Insights on Substack.
Jess Haberman says
The most violent, lawless day in Washington, D.C., ever, was on January 6, 2021. But President Trump did not send National Guard troops that day, when they were really needed. Instead the people who attacked policemen were later set free by President Trump. Anyway, President Trump – release the Epstein files!
Sarah Oppenheimer says
Are you not aware that Trump tried to order 10k troops on Jan 6th but Nancy Pelosi said no?
Jess Haberman says
Really? President Trump “tried” to order troops on Jan 6th but Nancy Pelosi said no! Sorry Sarah but that doesn’t even pass the smell test. And that ridiculous allegation has been debunked.
Deirdre LaMotte says
You are incorrect. The Speaker and dozens of Republicans, who now bow to the creep, begged him to call in the National Guard. He was too busy watching HIS insurrection, hoping it would succeed.
Jim Franke says
Trump did not officially order 10,000 troops to protect the Capitol that day. Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller clarified under oath that he never received any order or direction from Trump to deploy that many troops.
Axios
Wikipedia
Similarly, General Mark Milley, then-Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that if such an order had existed, he would have been aware—but he never was.
The New Yorker Nancy Pelosi did not block or refuse such a deployment—because she had no authority over the National Guard.
AP News
ajc
Wikipedia
The authority to request National Guard support rested with the Capitol Police Board, not Pelosi.
ajc
AP News
In fact, during the attack, Pelosi and Senate Republicans like Mitch McConnell did call for assistance from the Guard once the situation turned critical.
AP News
ajc Facts, not MAGA BS.
Sarah Oppenheimer says
Do you all think the people in DC on Jan 6th believed that Trump had lost the election and were there to support installing him as President anyway?
John Dean says
Thank you for the comment. I agree with you on all of it.
Kent Robertson says
He offered National Guard troops in advance of Jan 6. They were rejected by Pelosi.
Jess Haberman says
It’s true Trump made that claim but it’s not true. Former Capitol Police Chief testified that fe requested National Guard assistance days before the insurection but was denied by House and Senate Sergeants at Arms. It’s true that the Sergeants at Arms report to Congress so that is where this conspiracy theory may have gained some credence. But ask yourself why Mitch McConnell never got any blame. After all if assistance was truly turned down by the leaders of Congress he would have been as much as fault as Pelosi.
Deirdre LaMotte says
What a bunch of baloney. These pathetic MAGAS are desperate to wash over a violent insurrection
authored by the loser of the 2020 election.
Period.
He sat on his amble behind watching coverage as
MOC, his daughter and staff begged him to call off the hounds.
I am so sick of people pussy footing around this
for personal scape goat issues.
You support a man who should be in prison but for
a gelded, yellow bellied GOP.
And you still cover for this appalling human and his
owners.
sarah Oppenheimer says
Why do you think Trump is not in Prison?
Deirdre LaMotte says
Money.
Bob Kopec says
Trump is out of touch with reality and in mental and physical decline. He is turning the world upside down for revenge and personal greed. Why is he not in prison for his numerous crimes?
Glenn Baker says
Washington Free Beacon 8/13/2025
In July, just weeks before President Donald Trump announced his crackdown on crime in D.C., the city’s police union head, Gregg Pemberton, accused police lieutenants and captains of ordering lower-level members to “take a report for a lesser offense” in an attempt to make violent crime stats fall. One D.C. police commander, Michael Pulliam, is under investigation for manipulating those stats, NBC’s D.C. affiliate reported.
It’s far from the first time such accusations have come to light. Leaders of the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department were accused of rigging the city’s crime stats as early as 2019.
During a 2020 city council hearing, two D.C. police officers blew the whistle on their superiors, accusing them of misreporting violent crimes as misdemeanors to make the nation’s capital appear safer on paper. In one August 2019 incident they detailed, a man slashed a woman’s face and neck with an unknown object outside a liquor store, sending her to the hospital. The alleged crime fit the definition of felony “assault with a dangerous weapon,” but records obtained by WUSA9 showed that D.C. police classified the incident as a “simple assault” in its report, a misdemeanor that the department does not count as a “violent crime.”
Later, in December 2019, a man allegedly grabbed his boyfriend and held a knife to his neck during a night of heavy drinking. The D.C. police were called, but again, the force reported the alleged attack as a misdemeanor “simple assault,” according to WUSA9.
Neither case ended up being prosecuted.
The accusations raise questions about a narrative that has dominated mainstream media reports in the wake of Trump’s crackdown: that violent crime in the nation’s capital is at a 30-year low. The claim, regurgitated in recent New York Times, Washington Post, and Politico coverage, stems from a January press release from former president Joe Biden’s Justice Department, which lauded D.C. for reporting “the fewest assaults with dangerous weapons and burglaries in over 30 years.”
None of that coverage mentioned the allegations surrounding D.C.’s crime stats or the suspended commander.
Deirdre LaMotte says
Statistics released by the Metropolitan Police Department on the same day as Trump’s remarks showed the number of homicides had decreased by 32% from 2023 to 2024 and by 12% so far from 2024 to 2025. In addition, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia reported in January that violent crime overall for 2024 was down 35% from the previous year and was “the lowest it has been in over 30 years.”
Jeff Asher, a co-founder of AH Datalytics, a data consulting firm that produces an aggregation of crime data provided by law enforcement agencies around the country, told us Trump’s claim about murders hitting an all-time high in Washington “is not accurate. DC’s murder rate in 2023 was 39 per [100,000] which was the highest in the city since 2003. That was still down more than 50% from 1991’s murder rate of more than 80 per 100K when the city had 482 murders. It has also since fallen and is on pace with 2019’s pace so far in 2025,” Asher, a former CIA analyst, said via email.
Personally I prefer unbiased news and would not quote Paul Singer nor the Washington Free Beacon.
Eva M. Smorzaniuk MD says
Like every other decision the Trump administration makes, this is unrelated to facts on the ground, and clearly meant to punish a city that didn’t vote for him. I imagine other blue cities can expect the same treatment in the future. And, of course, its part of the daily onslaught of outrageous destractions meant to take our attention away from the things Trump doesn’t want people to focus on, such as The Epstein Scandal, or the fact that the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial company has made billions of dollars.
Wilson Dean says
Infusing Washington DC with National Guardsmen and FBI agents is completely unnecessary, unless of course he is seeking to move beyond Los Angeles and establish a precedent for doing so throughout the United States. He has already identified four of those cities, all with Democratic mayors. One step at a time, Trump is laying the groundwork for the transition of the US from a democracy into an authoritarian state.
Danna Murden says
I remember when the National Guard was on the streets in Cambridge, MD along with the other local police including the Marine Police. Next door neighbor and a cousin plus several other men I knew all Marine Police from Tilghman were there. So it was many police departments from other counties besides Dorchester. The public felt it was necessary, it was a very frightening time. I personally believe the National Guard should be in Baltimore, MD also as well as other cities around the country to help with the crime.
Charles Barranco says
Mr. Dean
Please explain how the president can ignore the Magnitsky Act which was passed specifically to prohibit Putin from entering this country? I don’t understand why no one is raising this issue? The bill was enacted to prohibit US entry toanyone who was guilty of human abuse. Since Putin murdered Sergey Magnitsky and is responsible for personally ordering the murder of many other dissidence, what more proof is needed to make a case against Putin?
Wouldn’t this be grounds for impeachment?
Thank You.
Deirdre LaMotte says
LOL. Everything he has done for 10 years is grounds for impeachment. But one would need to love this nation over financial gain, I am sorry to say, to do so.