D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued the Trump administration on Thursday for deploying the National Guard to Washington, saying it infringes on the city's sovereignty and violates laws prohibiting the use of the military for domestic law enforcement.
"The deployment of National Guard troops to police District streets without the District's consent infringes on its sovereignty and right to self-governance," lawyers for D.C. wrote in the lawsuit, which was filed in federal District Court in Washington. "The deployment also risks inflaming tensions and fueling distrust toward local law enforcement. And it inflicts economic injuries, depressing business activities and tourism that form the backbone of the local economy and tax base. No American jurisdiction should be involuntarily subjected to military occupation."
The lawsuit is the latest legal pushback against President Donald Trump's effort to send troops into cities to facilitate his policy goals -- from mass deportation to cracking down on violent crime in areas run by Democrats.
The White House said in a statement that Trump is "well within his authority" to deploy the troops to the city.
"This lawsuit is nothing more than another attempt -- at the detriment of DC residents and visitors -- to undermine the President's highly successful operations to stop violent crime in DC," White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said.
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Trump's troop deployment in California violated laws against using the military for domestic purposes. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, a San Francisco-based appointee of Bill Clinton, found that troops were actively participating in local policing in ways that ran afoul of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which limits the use of the military in enforcing civilian laws.
The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb, a Biden appointee. It's the second high-profile Trump-related case randomly assigned to Cobb in the past two weeks: Cobb also is also presiding over the lawsuit from Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook, who is contesting Trump's attempt to fire her.
Schwalb argues that National Guard troops patrolling Washington are similarly conducting illegal police work. His announcement comes nearly a month after Trump said he would deploy the troops as part of his decision to invoke the Home Rule Act.
The provision of 1973 law -- which had never been invoked before -- gives the president the ability to enlist the services of the city police department for federal purposes during a state of emergency.
Until Thursday, Washington officials had largely limited their legal action against Trump's attempt to intervene in the district's law enforcement. Mayor Muriel Bowser adopted a somewhat conciliatory approach to Trump's efforts. But Schwalb did sue last month when U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi attempted to install Terry Cole, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, as the "emergency police commissioner" and instructed him to assume "all the powers and duties" of the city's police chief.
The federal government and Washington officials quickly reached an agreement, at the urging of a federal judge, walking back that order, naming Cole as Bondi's "designee" responsible for directing Washington leaders to provide police department services.
Trump has at times declared his intentions to send troops into other cities, including Chicago, to address claims of rampant crime that local leaders reject. This week he floated sending troops into New Orleans and suggested he is waiting for governors to ask for help.
Schwalb is asking the court to declare the troop deployment illegal and to rescind it.
"Armed soldiers should not be policing American citizens on American soil," Schwalb wrote on X Thursday. "The forced military occupation of the District of Columbia violates our local autonomy and basic freedoms. It must end."
Schwalb's lawsuit puts him, in some ways, in tension with Bowser, who has welcomed the surge of federal law enforcement because of its effect on reducing crime. Bowser has questioned the need for other states to send their Guard troops to Washington, and she has lamented ICE officers' conduct and mask-wearing. But she has said the influx of other federal authorities has helped bolster the D.C. Police Department's work.
Bowser on Wednesday said she was "outraged over the intrusion on our federal autonomy," while trying to chart what future cooperation between city and federal officials looks like.