Since I published the piece below, I’ve been picking up some of the back and forth on the efforts of the DC Metro police to get its story together in response to questions from various members of the DC city council. They’ve now released their official statement.
It’s actually worse than what I suspected.
According to the MPD, they first got involved when they were contacted by the DC U.S. Attorney’s Office, the one currently run by acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin, the election denier and Jan 6th lawyer. The U.S. Attorney’s office told the MPD that there was a disturbance at the U.S. Institute of Peace offices and that some intruders or trespassers were refusing to leave. They gave the MPD the contact information for the guy Trump says he has appointed to run it. That would be Kenneth Jackson, though the statement doesn’t include his name. They talked with Jackson and then forced the USIP staff to leave based on what the U.S. Attorney’s office told them about who had rightful possession of the office.
They play coy about exactly why the staff left.
MPD members went to the USIP building and contacted an individual who allowed MPD members inside of the building. Once inside of the building, the acting USIP President requested that all the unauthorized individuals inside of the building leave. Eventually, all the unauthorized individuals inside of the building complied with the acting USIP President’s request and left the building without further incident, and no arrests were made.”
“Eventually,” as the kids say, is doing a lot of work there.
As I said, they’re coy about just who made who do what. But that’s not really the point here. The police showed up and said the staff had to leave and they left. I don’t think the USIP folks or their lawyers were up for a police-and-barricades situation. The real issue here is that the U.S. Attorney or at least the U.S. Attorney’s office contacted the MPD and told them that there was no legitimate dispute and they had to make the staff leave and they did.
Two additional points.
According to the Times story and USIP staff, they contacted the MPD first. It seems possible that the DOGE and/or FBI people there saw this communication and reached out to Ed Martin to try to intervene. That part is my speculation. The MPD statement doesn’t say anything about it. But that seems like the most likely chain of events.
The second point is that the Senate passed that bill to restore the funding for the DC government which had been axed in the House’s continuing resolution. The Senate passed it, but it still has to be passed by the House and Trump needs to sign it. In other words, Trump has the DC government by the throat at the moment. Those are near-existential levels of funding for DC. They’re simply not in any position to tangle at all with the White House at the moment. And from everything I’ve seen so far, the mayor and at least certain members of the city council aren’t saying a word.
