House Republicans moved quickly Monday to follow President Donald Trump’s lead as he took unprecedented action to target Washington’s locally elected government — further heightening the GOP’s scrutiny of the capital city and its Democratic elected leaders.
Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said he would haul Mayor Muriel Bowser, Council Chair Phil Mendelson and Attorney General Brian Schwalb to Capitol Hill next month for a hearing. The public grilling is likely to come as Trump’s takeover of Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department approaches a 30-day expiration date, requiring congressional action to continue.
“For years, the D.C. Council’s radical, soft-on-crime agenda has emboldened criminals and put public safety at risk in our nation’s capital,” Comer said in a statement.
His voice was one of many in the GOP who hailed Trump’s moves Monday to seize control of the D.C. police force and deploy the National Guard in the capital. Speaker Mike Johnson, for instance, said in a post on X that “House Republicans support this effort to CLEAN UP Washington, END the crime wave, and RESTORE the beauty of the greatest capital in the world.”
While violent crime reached a 30-year low in the city last year, Republicans argue Washington is unsafe and poorly governed. A spate of carjackings and several other recent high-profile incidents have captured GOP attention on Capitol Hill, including the murder of an intern for Rep. Ron Estes (R-Kan.) and the assault last week of a Trump administration staffer.