Several Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability said they woke up Wednesday morning ready for the committee’s hearing on D.C. officials’ reported refusal to clear the pro-Palestinian encampment erected at GW, only to find out the hearing had been canceled.
Early Wednesday morning, city officials authorized the clearing of the encampment, which was nearing its second week, prompting Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) to cancel the hearing that day where D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith were set to testify. Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said the impending House testimony and surrounding media attention likely prompted local police’s clearing.
“They’ve been out there for 14 days and then all of a sudden just hours before the hearing, then all of a sudden now the encampment is raided and in the middle of the night,” Bush told a Hatchet reporter on the steps of the Capitol Wednesday evening.
The mayor’s office confirmed Bowser and Smith’s appearances at the hearing Tuesday morning — about 24 hours before the hearing — but Smith announced in a Wednesday press conference that D.C. officials made the decision to clear the encampment Monday, citing “indicators” that the encampment becoming “more volatile and less stable.” Smith said the hearing did not affect the decision to clear the encampment.
Six days before the sweep — where MPD officers used pepper spray and arrested more than 30 demonstrators early Wednesday morning — and the scheduled hearing with Bowser and Smith, GOP members of the oversight committee met with GW officials and toured the encampment. In a swarm of press and protesters singing, drumming and chanting phrases like “Hands off D.C.,” House members walked briefly through the encampment, many calling for the arrest of the demonstrators.
Rep. William Timmons (R-SC), a GW alum who was on the tour of the encampment with his GOP colleagues in the oversight committee, said the publicity surrounding the tour “increased pressure” on D.C. officials to clear the encampment. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) has posted nearly a dozen videos, photos and Fox News appearances relating to his tour of and commentary on the University Yard encampment, which have collectively amassed more than 60,000 likes.
“If we need to take additional steps for them to send in the MPD to restore order, we’re going to try and explore them,” Donalds said Tuesday, referencing the threat of further congressional action if D.C. officials did not clear the encampment.
Comer said in a statement Wednesday that he had talked to Bowser prior to canceling the hearing to thank her for clearing the encampment, adding that it was “unfortunate” that the situation at GW “forced” the oversight committee to act. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) praised Comer for “delivering results” as a product of the pressure he placed on D.C. officials during the tour and in a letter he co-signed with Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC).
Timmons said he found out Wednesday morning that Comer had called off the hearing, but Bowser’s move did not necessarily catch him by surprise. He told Fox News last Sunday that he’d be “shocked” if Bowser “didn’t do anything between now and Wednesday.”
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who sits on the House Oversight Committee but cannot vote on bills being considered by the full House as a nonvoting delegate of D.C., said congressional intervention into the District’s local affairs “certainly” brings up her pro-statehood sentiments. She said she has “the closest” working relationship with the mayor but had no prior knowledge of Bowser’s decision to clear the encampment, adding that she thinks impending congressional scrutiny prompted Bowser to authorize the clearing.
“These are matters that should be left to the city and to the city alone, not to members of Congress, even me,” Holmes Norton said.
Bush said the hearing was a “sham” and that congressional Republicans strong-armed D.C. government officials to oppose the encampment. In response to the clearing and Comer’s subsequent cancellation, she and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), the only Palestinian American member of Congress, held and invited six protesters to speak at a news conference at House Triangle on Wednesday afternoon, where the members and students denounced protesters’ arrests.
Bush said under the “guise” of combating antisemitism, congressional Republicans have used calls for student arrests on college campuses to silence the wide consensus of voices among Americans in support of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
“I want all the Democrats and Republicans to know they cannot arrest their way out of this growing dissent,” Tlaib said.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the top Democrat on the oversight committee, said he was “a bit shocked” by the hearing’s cancellation, but added that he rejects congressional efforts to “micromanage” D.C. affairs or specific campuses. He said his colleagues have been “very happy to demagogue” to the detriment of residents in the District.
“We are not the GW Board of Trustees,” Raskin said. “We’re not the president of GW, nor are we the chief of the Metropolitan Police Department or the mayor of Washington. But it just seems like it’s irresistible to some politicians to pop in if there are TV cameras around.”
Raskin added that he was prepared to tour the encampment with his oversight committee colleagues last week, pointing at past instances where committee members across the aisle had jointly visited a D.C. jail to visit Jan. 6 insurrectionists, but said his staff informed him that Democratic members were “not invited” to tour the encampment with GOP committee members May 1.
Raskin said in a statement Wednesday evening that he affirms the commitment of oversight committee Democrats to denounce antisemitism and defend free speech. He said Republicans have excused antisemitism during instances like the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where protesters shouted “Jews will not replace us.”
He said Republicans must condemn antisemitism from their own party and support anti-hate legislation, including the bipartisan Countering Antisemitism Act.
“Rather than join Committee Democrats in denouncing the ‘Great Replacement’ theory, a hateful theory that has fueled many of the worst hate-based mass-shootings in recent years, Committee Republicans have repeatedly echoed and even defended it,” he said in the statement.
