The military commander overseeing National Guard deployments in Los Angeles, Portland, and Chicago told lawmakers Thursday that he had no intelligence to suggest the military is facing an “enemy within,” in contrast to statements the president made during a September speech at Marine Corps Base Quantico.
Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee questioned Air Force Gen. Gregory Guillot, head of U.S. Northern Command, as well as a top Pentagon lawyer and the Defense Department’s deputy assistant secretary for homeland security and Americas security affairs during a hearing on the recent deployment of National Guard troops to U.S. cities. Several of those deployments have been deemed illegal in federal court.
In September, Trump told an auditorium full of the nation’s top military officers, “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military National Guard.” He added that “this is going to be a big thing for the people in this room, because it’s the enemy from within, and we have to handle it before it gets out of control.”
But Guillot said he has not been tasked with any domestic military operations against an “enemy from within,” and he doesn’t “have any indication of an enemy within.”
Mark Ditlevson, the Pentagon’s homeland defense official, described the deployments as a “modest burden” on the National Guard, while committee Chairman Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Ala., said concerns about cost and readiness “are both manufactured and misguided.”
“In my judgment, mobilizing the Guard is an excellent opportunity for units to enhance cohesion, complete mission-essential tasks and ensure training is complete,” he added.
Democratic lawmakers argued that the true cost is less time spent training for military missions, particularly among the troops deployed to Washington, D.C., who have been tasked with “beautification.”
“The National Guard has been performing missions that don’t help with their military training, like spreading mulch and picking up trash,” Duckworth said, “but that as we have sadly seen, nonetheless, carry risk for our service members,” referring to two West Virginia Guardsmen who were shot, one of whom died, while standing guard outside a Metro station late last month.
Duckworth went on to question the administration’s assertions that the deployments are about restoring “law and order” in cities run by Democrats.
“If this administration cared about law and order, it would not be ignoring the growing number of judges, including those appointed by Trump himself, who’ve deemed these deployments illegal,’ she said. “In Illinois, a judge from the Northern District found that the [Homeland Security Department] account of the situation on the ground, and I quote, ‘was simply unreliable.’ “
Judges in California, Oregon, Illinois, and D.C. have all ruled the deployments illegal, but the administration has sought appeals that have allowed troops to stay in place.
“I fear the day when Americans stop thanking our troops for their service because they’re afraid of our troops,” Duckworth said. “We know that this administration is trying to borrow the respected image of the military. Across the country, the DHS agents are dressing in camouflage and wielding military-style weapons. They’re making it hard for Americans to tell the difference between abusive federal agents and professional troops.”
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, questioned whether the emergencies Trump has declared to justify sending in troops are truly occurring.
“We have a president who has a very low bar as to what constitutes an emergency,” he said. “I live in Maine, on the border of Canada—there is no emergency with Canada, and yet this president declared an emergency in order to impose tariffs on Canada, which is wrecking their economy.”
Though lawmakers have differing views of the deployments along party lines, there was bipartisan agreement on one thing.
“By the way, Counselor, the organization that you work for is the Department of Defense,” King told Charles Young, the deputy Pentagon counsel, responding to the official’s repeated use of the term War Department, an alternative Trump administration name that hasn’t been approved by Congress.
The most recent version of the National Defense Authorization Act, the traditional venue for any changes to Pentagon policy, does not include a name-change provision.
“Thank you for repeatedly making that point, Senator,” Wicker said.
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