House Republicans invited Washington, D.C., mayor Muriel Bowser and Metropolitan Police Department chief Pamela Smith to testify about their collective failure to clear out a pro-Palestinian encampment that sprang up at George Washington University last week.
House Committee on Oversight and Accountability chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) and other Republican members on the congressional panel announced that the emergency hearing with the two D.C. officials will take place next Wednesday. The Oversight Committee seeks to hold the city’s mayor and police chief accountable after the MPD “rejected George Washington University’s request for help in removing the radical, antisemitic, and unlawful protestors occupying the campus and surrounding public lands,” Comer said Wednesday.
“MPD’s refusal to assist GWU in their efforts to protect the Jewish student body is disturbing and unacceptable,” he added.
Despite GWU’s plea for help, the MPD has not made a single arrest. Nor has it cleared out the tent encampment since protesters set it up last Thursday. Officers were preparing to disband the encampment early Friday morning, but according to the Washington Post, they were told to stand down by city officials who wanted to avoid the bad optics of removing a group of peaceful protesters.
Unlike other U.S. campuses — including Columbia University and the University of California, Los Angeles — GWU has not seen any violent incidents so far.
While visiting GWU’s campus Wednesday afternoon with five of his colleagues, Comer made the announcement about the upcoming hearing. Representatives Lauren Boebert (R., Colo.), Anna Paulina Luna (R., Fla.), Byron Donalds (R., Fla.), Eric Burlison (R., Mo.), and William Timmons (R., S.C.) all condemned the school’s anti-Israel protest and urged the D.C. police to do their job.
“Everybody believes in peaceful protests, but this is trespassing now,” Donalds said at a press conference on campus. “GW has asked for help to have the encampment removed because this is private property, and the mayor is weak in the face of foolishness, and she won’t do her job of enforcing the law in Washington, D.C.”
During their visit, the lawmakers met with university leaders and toured the encampment. GWU suspended at least seven students after they refused to leave the encampment, student newspaper GW Hatchet reported last week.
On Tuesday, Comer and Representative Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.) wrote a letter reminding Bowser and Smith that if they don’t fulfill GWU’s request for removing the protesters and keeping its campus safe, Congress “will be obliged to exercise its legislative powers to do so.” Under the Constitution, Congress holds plenary, or absolute, legislative authority over the nation’s capital.
While Congress cannot control the MPD or deploy the D.C. National Guard, it can influence government affairs local to D.C. by holding hearings, striking down legislation, or controlling the city’s budget.
In response to the Republicans’ demands, Bowser criticized Foxx for her role in penning the Tuesday letter.
“The members have universities in their own districts, especially the member from North Carolina, and I was watching a lot of activity in North Carolina,” Bowser said at a Wednesday news conference, seemingly referencing the anti-Israel demonstration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “It would seem that her energy would be best placed there.”
The Democratic mayor did not confirm whether she will attend the congressional hearing.
“I understand that a notice went out as I was standing here, and I will review that, and the city will definitely have a response,” Bowser responded, when asked about the invitation.