Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) is pressuring the mayor of Washington, DC, Democrat Muriel Bowser, to get out of the way of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and let cops clear the rowdy leftist protesters off the campus of George Washington University.
In addition to Republicans pressuring officials to stop these demonstrations rife with antisemitism, this is just the latest escalation between Senate Republicans and D.C. officials when it comes to the city’s Democrats’ soft-on-crime policies.
District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser speaks during a news conference November 9, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
“Since last week, protestors have ‘occupied’ George Washington University’s campus and are demanding that the university divest from the one Jewish state,” Cotton wrote in a Monday letter to Bowser obtained exclusively by Breitbart News ahead of its public release. “Campus officials requested help from the D.C. Metro Police last week, but even as they prepared to assist the mayor’s office told police to stand down and said it would look bad publicly for police to disrupt a ‘small number of peaceful protestors.’ I’m writing to inform you: What looks bad publicly is D.C. allowing a band of antisemitic, mask-wearing fanatics who call for an ‘intifada revolution’ to turn a university into a pro-Hamas encampment.”
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The university, in the heart of the nation’s capital right near the State Department in Foggy Bottom, is no different than many other major universities nationwide such as Columbia or UCLA that have seen pro-Palestinian protests occupy the centers of their campuses. In the case of George Washington University, though, as the Washington Post reported this weekend, university officials requested help from the MPD to remove them but the MPD reportedly, at Bowser’s orders, declined to do so.
Activists and students participate in an encampment protest at the University Yard at George Washington University on April 25, 2024, in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Cotton’s letter explicitly pressures Bowser to reverse course and allow the cops to do their jobs — and argues that if the protesters were going up against something Democrats supported, such as soft-on-crime policies in D.C., then Bowser would not stand in the way of cops clearing the protesters.
“I have no doubt that if protestors were illegally gathered in opposition to Washington, D.C.’s disastrous record on crime, you would have quickly ordered the police to intervene,” Cotton wrote. “Whether it is due to incompetence or sympathy for the cause of these Hamas supporters, you are failing to protect the rights of law-abiding citizens by letting a terrorist-supporting mob take over a large area of a university. Your actions are a good reminder of why Washington, D.C. must never become a state. I’m calling on you to reverse your decision and allow the D.C. police to uphold the law.”