The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund issued the following statement from its executive director, constitutional rights litigator Mara Verheyden-Hilliard:
“Donald Trump has created the fiction of an emergency to turn the nation’s capital into a prototype of a police state. This is intended as a model application. No American city is safe from being placed under federal militarized rule.
“The federal takeover of the District of Columbia police department is an unlawful abuse of federal authority, outside the conditions required for invocation of Section 740 of the Home Rule Act or for the deployment of the National Guard. This is a first step in Trump’s march to militarize America’s cities and destroy and subvert democracy. Trump has outlined an occupation force, directed violence against the inhabitants of the District and called for the racist elimination of working class neighborhoods. There are no emergency circumstances in the District of Columbia as required to justify the seizure of the District’s police department or national guard militarization of District streets.
“The pandering group of supplicants who each took the microphone during Trump’s press conference resembled a king’s court but there is no place for a king in U.S. democracy. The PCJF stands with the people of the District of Columbia and the United States who are rejecting this power grab by a lawless administration that seeks to eliminate the basic constitutional rights and guarantees that are considered the centerpiece of democracy. We will use all legal means necessary to defend those cherished rights.”