Trump Delivering Only Symbolic Politics to His Believers: Spending Millions to Hire Park Police So He Can Continue to Play Mayor of DC [vicariously pleasing racists by dominating its Black residents]

Democratic senators are demanding the U.S. Park Police suspend their D.C. recruitment blitz and accuse the Trump administration of “hijacking this federal police force for its own authoritarian purposes,” according to a letter sent to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Monday morning.

The calls come after The Washington Post reported in October that the force is seeking to double its ranks in the nation’s capital over the next six months with a goal of becoming “the premier law enforcement agency in D.C.” — keeping the city safe “regardless of inaction” by the local police department and local elected officials, records show.

“The administration is on a deliberate hiring spree to exploit the U.S. Park Police’s jurisdiction and turn it into a tool of the President for him and his ideological extremists to impose their will on the streets of D.C.,” reads the letter. The lead author was Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee overseeing the Interior Department, within which the Park Police belongs.

Three Democratic senators co-signed with Merkley: Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Ron Wyden of Oregon. In addition to demanding a hiring suspension, the letter includes dozens of questions about the associated costs and operational objectives, giving the Park Police a Dec. 19 deadline to provide answers. Lawmakers also asked whether there are plans to hire additional officers in other parts of the country. The Park Police has offices only in the D.C. region, New York and San Francisco.

The effort marks the second time in recent months that Democratic lawmakers have scrutinized the Park Police.

The Park Police are tasked with protecting national parkland and monuments. Since the president declared a crime emergency in D.C. in August, though, the agency has tightened its relationship with immigration enforcement and restructured to move its leadership one step closer to the White House. Burgum also rolled back police chase policies that allowed pursuits only for people wanted for violent felonies — a decision that the department has championed as expanding its ability to apprehend criminals but that drew swift criticism and spurred a separate congressional probe.

The expansion strategy set out to recruit, train and retain an additional 450 officers in D.C. — though that goal has since shrunk to 300, according to the police union. Even with the most optimistic expansion, the city police force would remain more than four times larger than the Park Police, which as of October had 289 sworn officers in D.C. [MORE]