With federal agents and Guardsmen credited with dramatically reducing crime in the nation’s capital, President Trump told reporters last week he may use that same tactic in other major cities.
“Chicago is a mess,” Trump said. “We’ll straighten that one out probably next. That will be our next one after this, and it won’t even be tough.”
Reacting to President Trump’s stated plan, attorney Abraham Hamilton III told American Family Radio that Washington and Chicago are quite different situations. Trump was able to take over Washington because it’s a federal city, Hamilton pointed out.
"The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 limits the use of federal military personnel in domestic law enforcement,” Hamilton said. “So, you cannot deploy the National Guard from the federal position to engage in domestic law enforcement."
Hamilton, an AFR radio host and general counsel at the American Family Association, is a former assistant district attorney.
Using executive powers granted in the Home Rule Act, President Trump flooded Washington with hundreds of federal agents, from agencies such as the DEA and FBI, as well as Washington National Guard soldiers.
He has also taken temporary control of the Washington Metropolitical Police, moving aside the city’s controversial police chief to put the head of the DEA in her place.
Despite that legal authority, the Home Rule Act only gives a president 30 days of such executive power. After that period, any more executive authority must be granted by Congress.
When riots broke out in and around Los Angeles over ICE arrests, President Trump federalized the California National Guard to confront the rioters and take back the streets. Even that action has been challenged in court, however, by Democrats.
Those guardsmen were deployed there to stop riots, not to act as civil law enforcement, Hamilton said.
“So the question I would have,” Hamilton concluded, “is if President Trump says he wants to send in the National Guard, the specific question will be send them in to do what? What are they doing?”
Reacting to Trump's comments from Chicago, conservative activist P. Rae Easley supports his plan to fight crime there and wants him to walk the streets.
"We want to show him boots-on-the-ground what we're dealing with," she says. "We don't want them to clean up before he gets here."
