John,

Right now, federal agencies are refusing to be transparent about President Trump’s takeover of Washington, DC—and CREW is fighting to hold them accountable.

We just sued twelve federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, for failing to produce records in response to our FOIA requests about President Trump’s federal takeover of Washington, DC.

In August, Trump declared a “crime emergency” in Washington, DC—then federalized the city’s police, activated the National Guard and sent law enforcement from several federal agencies into the streets.

For months, uniformed troops and federal officers have been deployed throughout the city with very little transparency concerning their activities.

The National Guard was going to be deployed through at least February 2026, though just yesterday a judge sided with the DC attorney general and ruled that the National Guard deployment illegally intrudes on DC's ability to govern itself. The Trump administration now has a chance to appeal.

USA Today received records showing that the deployment of the National Guard alone was set to cost $1.8 million in taxpayer funds per day—and that’s just one piece of the deployment.

Trump’s takeover is completely unnecessary and baseless, trampling DC’s autonomy, costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars—and undermining democracy in the process.

This is a blatant misuse of the military and a startling escalation of federal overreach, which Trump has spread to other cities beyond DC. It's gratifying to see a judge acknowledge that fact, though the fight to end the deployment is likely far from over.

The public still deserves answers—and CREW is demanding them. We requested records aiming to establish the cost of the takeover, determine how the reassignment of federal law enforcement officers affects agency priorities and shed light on what, if any, training was provided to officers who participated in the takeover.

The American public urgently needs answers about how the government is spending their taxpayer money.

We’re asking the court to order the agencies to turn over all responsive records so that the public can have transparency into this aggressive imposition of federal power.

Thank you,

Donald Sherman
Executive Director and Chief Counsel
CREW