The Republican governors of three states are deploying hundreds of National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., at the request of the administration of President Donald Trump, who has portrayed the city as awash in crime.
The announcements on Saturday of troops from hundreds of kilometers away in West Virginia, South Carolina and Ohio came a day after D.C. officials and the Trump administration negotiated a deal to keep Mayor Muriel Bowser’s appointed police chief, Pamela Smith, in charge of the police department after D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb filed a lawsuit to block the federal takeover of the department.
Trump, a Republican, said last week he was deploying hundreds of D.C. National Guard troops to Washington and temporarily taking over the Democratic-led city’s police department to curb what he depicted as a crime and homelessness emergency.
