The Washington Post is reporting that the Department of Justice has responded to the Washington DC City Council’s letters to governors of states that have dispatched their National Guard forces to occupy (my word) DC. The DC Council letters “respectfully request” that the governors withdraw those forces.
In the letters, which can be found here, the City Council expresses its gratitude to National Guard members for providing security during the America 250 festivities in DC, but explains why an open-ended military occupation (my word) is inappropriate and has not resulted in the reductions of crime–especially, violent crime–that serve as the pretext (also my word) for the continued DC occupation and the militarization of law enforcement functions and patrols in DC neighborhoods: “Yet analysis of the deployment has found only a modest decrease in property crime and no measurable reduction in violent crime attributable to the Guard’s presence since August 2025” (footnote omitted).
The DC Council letters also cite the costs of the occupation, noting that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the costs to taxpayers of the occupation are approximately $3 million per day (that’s costs that all of you, U.S. readers, will be paying). And the letters state, “Extending the deployment raises serious concerns about mission creep, the militarization of civilian spaces, the erosion of local democratic control, and potential interference in the peaceful transfer of power following upcoming elections.”
To similar effect, the letters go on to state, “In addition, the continued presence of military personnel in the nation’s capital through future election periods also risks normalizing the use of armed forces in and around spaces where residents vote, organize, protest, and participate in civic life. Whatever their stated mission, Guard personnel should not become a standing feature of the political and electoral landscape of the District.” In short, the letters were persuasive, respectful, and much more tempered and reasonable in tone than they would have been if I had written them.
DOJ’s response to the letters, however, is both extraordinary and utterly (and predictably) on-brand for this Administration: “Your council has no power to demand that governors remove their brave men and women from serving in uniform in our Nation’s capital,” wrote Colin M. McDonald, a high-ranking official in the deputy attorney general’s office. McDonald goes on, “Your politically-motivated letter is impotent theatrics not worth the paper it’s written on, and D.C. is a much safer place no matter what you say.”
This is the kind of alpha-dog posturing that Pam Bondi displayed in her Congressional appearances, and that has become an essential part of the White House Communications Office’s playbook under Karoline Leavitt and Steven Cheung. As I noted yesterday in discussing Leavitt’s tactical displays of annoyance, defensiveness, and impatience, the posturing should be seen for what it is: a tactic whose goal is to shut down any questioning and criticism. (It also is notable that the tactic frequently starts with a mischaracterization of the questioning and criticism that the Administration is attacking: in this case, characterizing the DC Council as making a “demand.”)
It is widely understood that the Administration’s go-to reflex is to attack, ridicule, and demean, and to engage in wildly disproportionate displays of fury at being questioned at all. That is the Trumpian style, and its imperiousness has filtered down from the wannabe King to his second-rate courtiers and lackeys. It is a style of responding to questioning and criticisms that is fundamentally antithetical to democratic values. But that’s how would-be autocrats roll, I guess.
Just as troubling, if not more so, is what the the DOJ response says about the Trump DOJ, now under the leadership of Trump’s personal attorney, Todd Blanche. DOJ’s response is yet another indication (as if we need another indication) that the Administration’s moral decay has seeped into DOJ. From lying to courts, to baseless indictments motivated by revenge or politics, to this response to the DC Council, DOJ has shown over and over again that it is no longer “the people’s law firm,” but rather it is Trump’s, and as such reflects its client’s moral rot, mendaciousness, stupidity, and arrogance. Dripping with sarcasm and condescension, the vituperative DOJ response reflects the hollowing out of our democratic institutions and the cynical consolidation of power that threatens our freedom, dignity, and way of life at every turn.