The Posse Comitatus Act looms over President Trump’s decision to take over the Washington, D.C. police, his previous decision to assume control of the California National Guard, and the redistricting battle in Texas.
On August 11, The White House issued a presidential memoranda titled “Restoring Law and Order in the District of Columbia” which included these key passages:
The local government of the District of Columbia has lost control of public order and safety in the city, as evidenced by the two embassy staffers who were murdered in May, the Congressional intern who was fatally shot a short distance from the White House in June, and the Administration staffer who was mercilessly beaten by a violent mob days ago. Citizens, tourists, and staff alike are unable to live peacefully in the Nation’s capital, which is under siege from violent crime. It is a point of national disgrace that Washington, D.C., has a violent crime rate that is higher than some of the most dangerous places in the world. It is my duty to our citizens and Federal workers to secure the safety and the peaceful functioning of our Nation, the Federal Government, and our city.
Mobilizing the District of Columbia National Guard. Pursuant to my authority under the Constitution and laws of the United States and the District of Columbia, I direct the Secretary of Defense to mobilize the District of Columbia National Guard and order members to active service, in such numbers as he deems necessary, to address the epidemic of crime in our Nation’s capital. The mobilization and duration of duty shall remain in effect until I determine that conditions of law and order have been restored in the District of Columbia. Further, I direct the Secretary of Defense to coordinate with State Governors and authorize the orders of any additional members of the National Guard to active service, as he deems necessary and appropriate, to augment this mission.
Aficionados of incipient fascism might be a bit disappointed in the rhetoric compared to this banger from April:
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) August 13, 2025
Maybe the more restrained tone is a function of lessons learned in the California deployment which is now the subject of litigation based on the Reconstruction Era Posse Comatitus Act.
Or maybe it’s boiler plate based on Trump’s stated plans to use the National Guard to “take back” other cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Baltimore and Oakland.
Critics were quick to notice that each city named Trump has a Black mayor.
Trump has also tasked the Pentagon with creating a “military ‘reaction force’ for civil unrest.” The Washington Post has details:
The Trump administration is evaluating plans that would establish a “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force” composed of hundreds of National Guard troops tasked with rapidly deploying into American cities facing protests or other unrest, according to internal Pentagon documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
The plan calls for 600 troops to be on standby at all times so they can deploy in as little as one hour, the documents say. They would be split into two groups of 300 and stationed at military bases in Alabama and Arizona, with purview of regions east and west of the Mississippi River, respectively.
Cost projections outlined in the documents indicate that such a mission, if the proposal is adopted, could stretch into the hundreds of millions of dollars should military aircraft and aircrews also be required to be ready around-the-clock.
Meanwhile in Texas, Trump’s acolytes are attempting to criminalize Democratic opposition to the unprecedented mid-decade redistricting plan.
I’ll have more on that further down, but let’s look at the big picture first.
Steven D. Schwinn of the John Marshall Law School lays out the constitutional implications of Trump’s words and actions:
These attacks follow a common course of action. First, President Trump lodges an aggressive or even outlandish constitutional claim in support of a new controversial policy. Often, his claim, if ultimately accepted, would dangerously aggrandize the power of the presidency at the expense of the coordinate branches and the states in violation of the separation of powers and federalism. Next, he adjusts his claim, and his policy, in reaction to push-back from Congress, the courts, or the states. But he does so only begrudgingly, often leaving a trail of damage to our structural Constitution in his wake. Finally, he nevertheless achieves his original policy goal, or much of it, by further abusing the coordinate branches and the states.
In addition to following a common course of action, President Trump’s attacks also have a common feature: They exploit the comparative institutional strengths of the presidency and the comparative institutional weaknesses of the coordinate branches and the states. President Trump is all too aware that the modern president wields enormous power. At the same time, he realizes that Congress, the courts, and the states often lack effective institutional powers or cooperative ability to rein him in. (And even when effective institutional powers may exist, they can be frustrated or undermined when the coordinate branches or the states share President Trump’s political objectives.) By exploiting the institutional strengths of the presidency and the institutional weaknesses of the coordinate branches and the states, President Trump can yet further aggrandize his own power at the expense of Congress, the courts, and the states.
Re: Trump’s “D.C. takeover,” His rhetoric at his news conference was racially charged and alarming:
“It’s becoming a situation of complete and total lawlessness. We’ll get rid of the slums, too. We have slums here. We’ll get rid of them. I know it’s not politically correct. You’ll say, ‘Oh, so terrible.’ No, we’re getting rid of the slums where they live.”
Whatever is driving Trump’s actions, it’s not crime data.
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) August 13, 2025
It should also be noted that Joe Biden campaigned on a promise to grant D.C. statehood or at least expanded home rule but did the opposite in office.
Trump supporters like podcaster Benny Johnson amplified and expanded on Trump’s rhetoric, telling his 5.5 miillion YouTube subscribers it’s time for ethnic cleansing in the nation’s capitol:
I believe entire neighborhoods, probably, need to be emptied, need to be bulldozed. I believe that there are places that are so crime-ridden and so infested that you just need to — like you’re just gonna have to crack down. You’re going to have to do the job, and you’re going to have to get the crime out of Washington. That’s my personal experience.
So far, the reality isn’t quite that dramatic. From The New York Times:
About a dozen members of the National Guard appeared in five military vehicles near the Washington Monument as the sun set, a stark juxtaposition to a peaceful evening scene of people jogging by with headphones and walking their dogs. An Army official said troops were continuing to gather at the D.C. Armory and were expected to deploy around national monuments, and near a U.S. Park Police facility in the Anacostia neighborhood of southeast Washington.
Mr. Trump on Monday described the nation’s capital in apocalyptic terms as a crime-infested wasteland — a description that ignores the extent to which crime has been falling in the city over the last two years. But it remains unclear whether the eventual show of force will match the president’s rhetoric.
The initial deployment near the Washington Monument, at least, often resembled something less fearsome, with troops snapping photos of themselves with visitors. They left roughly two hours after they arrived.
“We just did a presence patrol to be amongst the people, to be seen,” Master Sgt. Cory Boroff said as he stood near a Humvee. “Of the people, for the people in D.C.,” he added. He said he did not know where they would be headed next.
…
Ms. Leavitt boasted that a federal task force, which includes some local officers, made 23 arrests on Monday evening in connection with a range of crimes. In Washington, a city of roughly 700,000 people, the Metropolitan Police Department makes an average of 68 arrests a day, officials said. City officials said the National Guard troops would not have the authority to make arrests.
Meanwhile the consequences of Trump’s April California caper continue to mount.
Starting with the California law suit:
California Attorney General Rob Bonta today issued a statement ahead of trial beginning tomorrow at 10:00 AM PT in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in California’s lawsuit challenging the unlawful use of federalized California National Guard troops for civilian law enforcement in Los Angeles in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. Attorney General Bonta and California Governor Gavin Newsom sued the Trump Administration in June after President Trump sent federalized California National Guard members and Marines into Los Angeles communities to patrol and engage in other law enforcement activity prohibited by the Posse Comitatus Act. He did so over the objections of the Governor, against the wishes of local law enforcement, and for reasons unsupported by conditions on the ground.
“Two months ago, the federal government deployed military troops to the streets of Los Angeles for the purposes of political theater and public intimidation. This dangerous move has no precedent in American history, erodes trust between the American military and the public, and pulls our servicemembers away from their vital role in fighting wildfires and tackling the fentanyl epidemic,” said Attorney General Bonta. “Today, 300 federalized California National Guard members remain tools in the President’s game, and the Trump Administration seeks to advance the argument that there should be no limits on what federal troops can do. But that is not what our law allows. We begin trial with the facts and the law on our side – and we look forward to making our case in court.”
At trial, California will argue that the Trump Administration’s decision to embed federalized California National Guard members and Marines within a domestic law-enforcement agency — the federal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency— and to deploy them widely throughout the state, all while asserting there are no limits on what those federal troops can do, is unprecedented and illegal. In attempting to justify the unjustifiable, the Trump Administration ignores both the clear tests that courts have established over decades for interpreting the Posse Comitatus Act and determining what conduct violates the Act, as well as career military officers’ understanding of that Act.
There are also allegations that Trump’s actions in California had a negative impact on morale:
Three different advocacy organisations representing military families said they had heard from dozens of affected service members who expressed discomfort about being drawn into a domestic policing operation outside their normal field of operations. The groups said they have heard no countervailing opinions.
“The sentiment across the board right now is that deploying military force against our own communities isn’t the kind of national security we signed up for,” said Sarah Streyder of the Secure Families Initiative, which represents the interests of military spouses, children and veterans.
“Families are scared not just for their loved ones’ safety, although that’s a big concern, but also for what their service is being used to justify.”
Chris Purdy of the Chamberlain Network, whose stated mission is to “mobilize and empower veterans to protect democracy”, said he had heard similar things from half a dozen national guard members. “Morale is not great, is the quote I keep hearing,” he said.
It’s deeply ironic that California is basing its case on the Posse Comatitus Act, an artifact of the end of Reconstruction:
To ensure that racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan would not intimidate Republican voters, Federal troops were stationed throughout polling places in the South. In the closest election in history, the Southern-favoured Democrat Samuel Tilden lost to Republican candidate Rutherford Hayes by a single electoral college vote. The presence of federal troops during the election made many Southerners see the military supervision as a tyrannical use of force by Republicans to remain in power. The continual escalation of tensions between the soldiers and Southerners led to the Compromise of 1877, wherein the newly-elected Hayes was forced to withdraw the army from the South. Not satisfied with this withdrawal, in 1878 the Democrats introduced the Posse Comitatus Act.
While the Democrats controlled the House following the 1874 midterm election, the Republicans still held a majority within the Senate. Surprisingly, many Republicans were sympathetic to the Act. When introducing the bill, Representative William Kimmel of Maryland skilfully depicted it as another example of Americans rejecting the influences of totalitarianism. He aligned his position with the Founding Fathers’ fears of a standing army and its ability to enforce martial law by drawing reference to Washington’s use of a civilian militia instead of the Army to quell the 1794 Whisky Rebellion, which was applauded by the Congress. Kimmel convinced many Republicans that this evidenced a history of the federal government disapproving the use of the military for civilian law enforcement. The Act stipulated that the use of the military as a posse comitatus was criminalised unless expressly authorised by an Act of Congress or the Constitution. The use of the military to combat civil insurrection under the 1807 Insurrection Act was included as a statutory exception. President Hayes, convinced that the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments would ensure black suffrage in the South, signed the Posse Comitatus Act into ratification in June 1878.
Not surprisingly, the Posse Comatitus Act has major loopholes and limitations:
One significant loophole is the District of Columbia National Guard. While all other National Guards are commanded by their state or territorial governors, the DC Guard falls under the president’s direct control at all times. Although it can act as a federal force, the Department of Justice has long claimed it can also operate as a non-federal “militia” that is not constrained by the Posse Comitatus Act. This means presidents can theoretically use the DC Guard for law enforcement whenever they choose.
Another loophole is Section 502(f) of Title 32 of the U.S. Code, which allows the National Guard to carry out federal missions at the request of the president or secretary of defense while remaining under state control, thus bypassing the Posse Comitatus Act. While the rest of Section 502 is principally used for training missions, there are no criteria limiting what kinds of missions Subsection f can be used for. The Trump administration exploited this license a few years ago when it invited National Guard troops from 11 states into DC to suppress protests following the murder of George Floyd. This unprecedented action was done without invoking the Insurrection Act, as the president could simply ask sympathetic state governors to give the orders on his behalf.
To make matters worse, the Posse Comitatus Act lacks an effective enforcement mechanism. The law is a criminal statute, yet there’s no real threat of prosecution for violating it in practice. No one has ever been convicted for violating the Posse Comitatus Act, and only two people have ever been prosecuted — both more than 140 years ago.
There has already been some interesting testimony in the trial, via Democracy Docket:
The second day of trial again saw testimony from Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman, the head of Task Force 51, which oversaw the National Guard troops and Marines involved in the military mission to Los Angeles.
Sherman said soldiers were given training materials on Posse Comitatus. These materials included a list of specific activities prohibited by the act: Security patrols, traffic control, crowd control and riot control.
Though the act prohibits members of the military from carrying out certain actions, Sherman said there was a “constitutional exception” that permitted such activities under certain circumstances.
…
After stressing that he’s not a lawyer, Sherman said Department of Defense attorneys advised him that the military was allowed to carry out prohibited activities because such acts were “in line” with Trump’s order for troops to protect federal property and personnel.
…
The advice Sherman said he received appears to derive from an expansive controversial theory of executive authority called the “protective power.” It asserts that presidents have inherent constitutional authority to use the military to protect federal property, personnel and functions and that such actions cannot violate Posse Comitatus.The theory, which is not explicitly found in the Constitution but is instead a legal interpretation of the Take Care Clause, served as the basis of Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles.
Politico had more on Sherman’s testimony:
The most revelatory testimony of the day came from Sherman, who initially commanded the Guard troops Trump deployed to Los Angeles. He recalled his opposition to a request by immigration authorities for military support during an operation slated for Father’s Day in the city’s MacArthur Park.
Intelligence, Sherman recalled, showed a minimal threat to federal immigration agents, and the proposed operation would have sent military vehicles through the center of the park. But when he expressed misgivings, Gregory Bovino, the chief patrol agent of the Customs and Border Patrol’s El Centro sector — who has taken on a leading role in the Los Angeles immigration crackdown — pushed back strongly, Sherman recalled.
Asked by a lawyer for California if Bovino questioned Sherman’s loyalty to the U.S. over the issue, Sherman answered simply “yes” and did not elaborate.
Meanwhile in Texas, Trump acolyte Attorney General (and U.S. Senate candidate) Ken Paxton is raising the stakes for Texas Democrats attempting to resist redistricting:
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday asked a Tarrant County judge to jail former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, in another escalation in Republicans’ broader effort to put an end to Texas Democrats’ walkout over a new congressional map.
Paxton sued O’Rourke and his political group, Powered by People, last week, arguing that the group was deceptively fundraising for and illegally supporting Texas Democrats’ walkout. Tarrant County District Judge Megan Fahey quickly granted Paxton’s request to temporarily block O’Rourke and Powered by People from fundraising for Democrats or spending money to cover their expenses.
On Tuesday, Paxton claimed that O’Rourke had violated that temporary injunction at a Fort Worth rally Saturday, when he told the crowd, “There are no refs in this game, fuck the rules.”
According to a video of the event, O’Rourke appeared to say that phrase after urging the crowd to support retaliatory redistricting in other blue states — not in relation to the injunction.
Paxton and Presidential aspirant Governor Greg Abbott have previously sought to have quorum breaking Democrats thrown out of office.
The Ettingermentum newsletter explains some of the context of the unprecedented national redistricting battle and how Dems could strike back:
…nothing even remotely like what we’re seeing now has ever happened before. Historically speaking, mid-decade redistricting almost always only happens as a result of court orders. When it has occurred on a purely partisan basis, it has never been on a systemic, nationally-organized scale involving tit-for-tat promises of retaliation. Because of this, the mainstream media—always insufficient in its coverage of gerrymandering even in the best of times—has so far been incapable of covering these rapid developments in a coherent way.
How Democrats Could Strike Back:
- California: 5-9 seats, but only if voters approve of a constitutional referendum.
- New York: 3 seats or more, but not until 2028.
- Maryland: One seat, but potential legal challenges make a new map unlikely.
- New Jersey: 1-2 seats, but it may already be too late.
- Illinois: 1-3 seats, but one is the most realistic.
- Minimum immediately achievable gains before 2026: Six seats.
- Maximum possible gains before 2026: Fifteen seats.
He also notes that the Texas Democrats have already given up:
Democrats believe they’ve accomplished their mission by killing the first special session and by raising national awareness about the mid-decade redistricting effort.
It is unclear which day they will be in Austin at the Capitol, but they stress that they will push for Hill Country flooding relief to be the priority.
After our initial reporting online and on television, a spokesperson for the Texas Democratic Caucus sent the following statement to ABC News:
“Members are still assessing their strategies going forward and are in a private meeting to make decisions about future plans currently,” he wrote. “If and when Texas House Democrats breaking quorum decide to go home is squarely dependent on the actions the Governor, Speaker, and Texas Republicans in charge make with regard to prioritizing flood victims over redistricting that hurts Texans.”
That kind of sums up the situation in a nutshell.
Trump and the GOP are aggressively pushing Constitutional limits while Democrats are putting up a mostly performative opposition.
Despite Trump’s imploding popularity, the Democrats are even less popular and unlike Trump, have no competing vision of governance.
Expect the slide into a post-Constitutional order to continue.
I’ll give Ralph Nader the last word, if only because his strident doomerism seems a bit over-the-top:
The approaching greater dangers from Trump will come when he pushes his lawless, dictatorial envelope so far, so furiously, so outrageously, that it turns his GOP valets in Congress and the GOP-dominated US Supreme Court against him. Add plunging polls, a stagflation economy, and impeachment, and removal from office would become a political necessity for the GOP in 2026 and beyond. In 1974, the far lesser Watergate transgressions by President Richard Nixon resulted in Republican Senators’ demanding Tricky Dick’s resignation from office.
…
If Trump were to be impeached and removed from office, would he try to stay in office? Here is where a real constitutional explosion can occur. He would have to be escorted from the White House by US Marshals who are under the direction of toady Attorney General Pam Bondi. The Supreme Court has held that the Constitution grants “the sole Power” to try impeachments in the Senate and nowhere else. Thus, the courts would provide no remedy to a lawless president wanting to stay in power.
…
Little restraint on lawless Trump from the Congress and the Supreme Court, and only feeble, cowardly responses by the flailing Democratic Party (and the Bar Associations for that matter) thus far, make for the specter of violent anarchy and terror.Trump has fatalistic traits. Armageddon shapes his ultimate worldview. Ponder that for a dictator with his finger on more than the nuclear trigger.
Here’s hoping Ralph’s overstating his case.
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If only these people had watched Tank.
You hate to go Godwin so early in the comments, but the murdered Israeli embassy staffers are a perfect reverse fit for 1938 murder of a German embassy staffer in Paris by Herschel Grynszpan-a Jewish fellow.
The Nazis justified doing Kristalnacht a few days later in the Fatherland based upon that, and now Benedict Donald is using the murdered Israeli staffers as justification for going draconian.
Why does everything have to include Bizarro World parallels?
I missed that reference in Trump’s remarks. Might be a clue as to who is urging him forward on this.
While I see no point in Taibbi and others dragging Russiagate back into the news should one point out that that too was a huge assault on the Constitutional order? In that instance he intelligence agencies were weaponized to block Trump from doing things the Deep State–and there is such a thing–didn’t like. Later Biden made noises about going after all MAGA just as Dems elaborately over prosecuted the Jan 6 trespassers. The Dems sowed the lawfare wind and now fear the whirlwind. We do need to fear Trump’s erratic 2nd reign but let’s not ignore the hypocrisy on the other side. Trump’s arbitrary foreign policy is wrong but so was Nordstream and Biden provoking a war with Russia to please American economic interests. So was “foaming the runway” and all the other undemocratic things that have taken place in the last 20 years.
I do think the eventual disapproval of the public themselves will keep Trump in check and in any case he’s old and getting older by the day. FDR said “nothing to fear but fear itself” but both parties are shouting “be afraid.” Common sense–something Americans periodically embrace–must prevail.
Both sides keep pushing the envelope for acceptable actions and eventually it’s going to pop.
I’m all for Taibbi bringing Russiagate up and I’m all for the administration investigating and prosecuting bad actorss like Brennan, Clapper, Comey, and Schiff.
Russiagate was a massive fraud that had massive consequences (including Nordstream, the Ukraine war, etc). I see no reason to let it lie.
But “the Dems were bad when they were in power” doesn’t make coverage of Trump’s current doings irrelevant.
It’s not that I’m ignoring the hypocrisy of the shitlibs, it’s that they’re not relevant to the current discussion except in their role as speedbumps slowing the GOP’s roll to a small degree.
I think I’ve been saying that Trump is our problem now–Biden history. But I am hinting that Trump’s actions–on everything–may be more reactive than his own big plan for conquest. That doesn’t mean he isn’t being used by others for their plans, perhaps through blackmail and other means.
Admittedly some of us have played the role of Trump whisperer around here and tried to interpret his motives. Consider us humbled by his current super authoritarian turn. But some of it at least is TACO?
Agree that Trump is more of a symptom than a cause and that he’s being pushed by multiple powerful forces.
The slide to collapse has many parents.
Thanks, Nat, for a very interesting and informative post that continues the NC tradition of being ahead of the curve on the issues that lie ahead.
Thanks very much! I don’t know how ahead of the curve this piece is, feels more like I’m struggling to keep up with the fuckery.
The percentage drops in crime rates can be somewhat deceiving, in that they fail to reflect the number of crimes relative to the population, which even with a significant drop can be quite high relative to other jurisdictional units. For example, Oakland’s rate of violent crime is 35.65 per 1,000 residents, while for the state of California it is 5.08, and for the U.S. it is 4.0. (https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/oakland/crime)
Interestingly there are a dozen cities, that I would characterize as Trump friendly, with higher crime rates that have yet to evoke his concerns regarding citizen safety.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate
For the same reason most of the Big Shitty Bill doenst hit until 2027 – they know they need to win the midterms next year to go full nuclear
As if Democrat legislative wins will make a significant difference. Of that I am doubtful. If we’re talking about “full nuclear”, sentiment within the military might be a more decisive factor.
Also true, though I dislike adding to Trump’s vendetta on numbers, is that it’s the police who supply the figures on crime, including the category assigned to each incident, the resolution of each incident, and even the occurrence of each incident. It’s not unusual, just as an example, for the police to report, say, an incident involving extremely high levels of noise or unlawful fireworks or speeding, and then close it as resolved within five minutes.
It’s Trump, yes, but it’s not just Trump.
Gore Vidal, with his usual tongue firmly in cheek wrote about the Election of 1876 in his novel, naturally enough titled “1876.” According to Vidal, who was perhaps one of the most knowledgeable persons concerning American politics due to his personal upbringing in and around the corridors of power in Washington, DC, the political wrangling around that election was as cynical and corrupt as could be.
The book is worth a read, if only for Vidal’s wry observations on American politics.
As for “crowd control,” it is generally observed that the 10th Mountain Division from the State of New York is the best trained unit in the armed forces for dealing with “civil unrest.”
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10th_Mountain_Division
Working on the theory that “True Believers” worry not about inconvenient laws, expect the Army be formally engaged with “crowd control” and “counter-terrorism” within the confines of the American State as overseas commitments draw down as the inevitable result of the collapse of the American Empire.
Stay safe. Stack deep.
I need to read that Gore Vidal book. He was a sage and is much missed. His book on Aaron Burr was fascinating.
He also liked to sport contrarian views. In Lincoln he suggests the South did have the right to secede. Then there’s his mantra
“Never pass up the chance to have sex or be on television.” Nuff said.
Epstein took it a step further and said; “You can have both!”
1876 is the sequel to Burr. (Though he put an epilogue to his Lincoln to retrofit it into his chronicle series).
Reconstruction (protect newly freed, formerly enslaved) – the Corrupt Bargain (protect imperiled R President Hayes) – Posse Comitatus Act (protect former plantation owners) – history is one damn thing after another. Seque to now.
I should also say, Trump needs headlines every day.
Yes, the Chaos is intentional. No need to account for your actions when every day is new drama!
Notice the language; “exploit” vs “use” .. Smells like bias to me.
When trying to evaluate the accuracy of what is being labeled as Trump’s Post-Constitutional Order, it seems important to at least publicly note the latest RussiaGate declassification story from Aug. 11 which just might connect some dots–like a DC lockdown and potential political indictments.
“…a sworn Democratic insider, embedded in the House Intelligence Committee, telling the FBI in multiple interviews at the time that he personally heard Adam Schiff convene staff, outline a plan to leak classified information damaging to Trump, and state the explicit goal ‘indict the President.’ The whistleblower detailed a coordinated process–sensitive documents restricted to a small circle. Schiff directing what would leak, and staffers offering reassurances that they ‘would not be caught,’ an admission that betrays consciousness of guilt and an awareness they were crossing legal lines…it meets the textbook definition of a conspiracy, multiple actors, in agreement, secretly committing unlawful acts toward a shared objective. Captured in official FBI 302s now in Congress’ hands, it is the most direct, contemporaneous evidence yet the RukssiaGate’s narrative wasn’t merely sloppy intelligence work–it was a deliberate, organized, secret plot carried out while knowing it was wrong.
What if the Administration is securing DC before it makes a really controversial move? Like arresting someone near the top of the political food chain?” Jeff Childress, Aug 12, 2025).
Maybe or maybe not.
That seems pretty likely. Fences going up, Humvees circulating, rats like Schiff running through mazes trying to escape. The betting markets may as well have a dead pool dedicated to DC.
Having lived in D.C., I don’t think a police clampdown on the city has much to do with the Congresscritters who have no military or police backup whatsoever and for the most part are not even in the city this time of year.
August is a miserable time to be in a swamp and most Congresscritters are off to Israel or other donor-rich enviornments.
Letting my own imagination run wild–the bloodthirsty criminals line could be a cover story.
Maybe a kind of excuse for a hard lockdown of the Nation’s capital days, weeks, or even months before something drops that might turn DC into a full blown war zone. As Childress has pointed out in his own speculations, you wouldn’t wait until the crowd was already forming at Union station. You would flood the zone first–National Guard, FBI, DEA, ATF, all under a single federal command so that when the real shoe drops, the real perimeter is already sealed and the city’s protest infrastructure is choked off before it can even get started. (That 30 day time-frame lockdown for DC can easily be extended.)
I could be totally off but, for me, the timing seems suggestive, doesn’t it?
Have to agree. August was great. No one in town; nothing got done. Just touri wandering around the mall. But there were the massive Saturday traffic tie-ups on US 50 past the Bay Bridge heading towards OC or the DE beaches.
Absent martial law, Trump is doomed to be greatly disappointed in the Guard’s serviceability for much in the way of repression. What they did in LA and will do in DC involves mainly hanging out, being bored, and collecting active duty paychecks while hoping the deployment lasts long enough to provide some active duty retirement credit.
In addition to having a greatly limited remit, no matter what Trump says, their troops have pretty much no appetite for acting aggressively against civilians who aren’t behaving aggressively towards them. They’re generally morw inclined to banter and fraternize.
I’d give no better than 50-50 odds on them even obeying orders they regarded as questionable. And once any Unit fails to do so, the threat starts to collapse.
Agree with that and am looking for links with more details on the reality of the California deployment. I don’t think we have the willing stormtroopers required for a national clampdown.
Not yet. That is why they are trying to hire more ICE goons.
As a former national guardsman, I’ll offer a few opinions.
First, if you activate local national guard units you will get a group that is pretty representative of local lower-middle-class demographics. I’m not going to panic about having those folks standing on my street corner. As indicated in some of the reporting, they are not going to be too enthusiastic about bullying people, and they will probably get tired of it pretty quickly. Morale is going to be a problem if this lasts for any period of time.
Second, using federal funds to pay national guard troops for anything other than regularly scheduled training is fiendishly difficult, and any officer who signs off on those orders is potentially committing a federal crime if the legal authorization does not exist. This intersects with the posse comitatus problems.
Third, even if Trump creates a full-time federal strike force, 600 troops is not very many.
Outside of DC, I think this is all going to wither away pretty quickly. Inside of DC is a different matter, but if I lived there I’d rather have local national guard troops wandering around than masked ICE goons jumping out of the back of rented trucks.
Thank you!
The National Guard killed students at Kent State. There are no doubt other examples in the deployment of National Guard in the racial disturbances of that era.
If the national guard is deployed with live ammunition they will almost certainly kill somebody, probably themselves or other national guardsmen.
Deployment with live ammunition basically never happens nowadays.
Week in, week out, the year in Chicago most dangerous for shootings was 2016 when Rahm was mayor. Trump and Blago were not at the scene of the crimes.
But homicides in the last 35 years in Chicago were highest under Bush 41. The peak homicide rate in the 20s (our 20s, not Capone’s) is 3.3 per 100k lower than 1991. Blago was running against some dude named Mike Buster back then–for alderman.
The weird thing is that after this is all over and you have a new president once again no one will be held accountable. It’s like Americans memory-hole the last four years Every Single Time and this is why people feel able to pull stunts like this.
Politicians have to be held accountable. All of them, no matter what flavour.
The US has been on a downward spiral since Ford pardoned Nixon (or maybe since the assassinations of the 60s went unpunished)
I remember my disgust with Ford at the time of the Nixon pardon.
To close the Republican-Democrat loop, Ford was given a “Profile in Courage” Award for the pardon in 2001 by the Kennedy Library.
Maybe LBJ’s assessment that Ford “played too much football without a helmet” played a part in the Nixon pardon.
But the Ford pardon, and many subsequent presidential pardons, may serve to illustrate that justice is to keep the little people in line.
” …. since the assassinations of the 60s …”
I lived through those assassinations as a young woman just out of college. I saw them as separate, totally unrelated events: Medgar Evers, JFK, Malcolm X, Cheney, Goodman, and Schwerner, the Freedom Riders, Fred Hampton, ML King, Robert Kennedy. It wasn’t until 30 years later, at St Louis museum’s display of the cultural history of the 1960’s, that I realized what a violent decade I had lived through. I was shocked.
I’d give it to the 1944 Democrat Convention, the coup against henry…
but that was after the reverse of the 1890’s downward (ie exploit workers further) spiral, first feigned or not,
in the nineteen aughts
but more seriously taken up in the ’30’s
**********
we cannot have that, not with henry nor any one
we are free of franklin
we have our war
we have all our wars
signed…
the plutocarcy
JFK might have gotten in the way.
JFK did get in the way. He was removed.
“Trump and the GOP are aggressively pushing Constitutional limits while Democrats are putting up a mostly performative opposition.”
#NailedIt
Team #PaidToLose is always about the performative …
Gives new meaning to Donkey Basketball. The dems are the Washington Generals.