WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st July, 2020) US President Donald Trump and his successors would lose control of Washington, DC's National Guard and the control over the troops would be given to the mayor under a new legislation announced by a group of Democratic Senators in a press release on Tuesday.
"While the governors of all fifty states and three US territories control their own National Guard forces, DC is denied that basic right. As we saw throughout this month... President Trump has abused his control of the DC National Guard, using it as his own personal means of bravado and force and grossly violating Americans' First Amendment rights in the process," Senator Chris van Hollen said in the release.
The legislation was prepared as an amendment to the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that funds the US military. The amendment mirrors stand-alone legislation the Senators introduced earlier this month, with support from a coalition of more than 100 advocacy groups, the release said.
The release cited lawmakers' anger over Trump's June 1 use of National Guard and police forces to clear a path to St. John's Church near the White House from protestors for a photo-opportunity in which the president held a Bible.
Trump's entourage included the most senior US military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Miley, who said later that he should not have been there.
