ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Alaska’s congressional delegation is staying largely silent over the push to deploy Alaska National Guard troops to the nation’s Capitol, following scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers and last month’s tragic shooting that killed one West Virginia guard member blocks away from the White House.
“We’ve been doing this for a long time,” Sullivan said on the deployment of the military inside the country at a Dec. 11 Senate Armed Services committee, citing his own experience in the Marines.
At that hearing, Sullivan asked Charles Young, principal deputy general counsel of the Defense Department, what the “legal framework and precedent” of deployments by the president were, something Young said wasn’t out of the normal.
“There is a legal basis and legal precedent that extends decades with Republican and Democrat administrations, correct?” Sullivan asked.
“It is, yes sir,” Young answered.
The senator then moved to ask about the importance of the National Guard in national protection, and did not return to the topic of deployments — stopping short of saying whether he supports the deployment of National Guard troops in D.C.
That silence hasn’t been isolated to Sullivan, either. Alaska’s News Source has reached out to the entire congressional delegation and Gov. Mike Dunleavy, R-Alaska, asking if they support the deployment or not.
As of publication, comment from all four lawmakers has not been returned.
Deployment of the National Guard into cities like D.C. is a topic already under scrutiny in cities like Chicago and Portland but highlighted by the recent shooting of two National Guard members, killing West Virginia National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom.
Following that shooting, the president ordered 500 more National Guard members to the nation’s Capitol, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said.
Republican lawmakers, like Florida Sen. Rick Scott during the committee hearing, have said guard members deployed, like those in D.C., “keep our country safe,” and reduce crime.
But scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers resurfaced at Friday’s Senate Armed Services committee, where several questioned the legality of the deployments.
“Nobody here is impugning the integrity of our National Guard,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, said at last week’s committee hearing.
“We’re just asking how they got put there by people in leadership positions.”
That scrutiny comes to Alaska, too, with the imminent deployment of Alaska National Guard members to D.C.
March deployment
One hundred National Guard service members will be deployed to the nation’s capitol at the request of the governor, according to a letter to lawmakers in mid-November from Alaska National Guard Adjutant General Torrence Saxe.
“The team will consist of Alaska Army and Air National Guard personnel trained in mission sets that may include site security, roadblocks and checkpoints, civil disturbance control, critical infrastructure protection, and personnel security,” Saxe said.
The word “civil disturbance” has raised legal concerns from lawmakers, including Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage, an Alaska National Guard veteran.
“The fear is, of course, that when you have a tool, an expensive tool, at your disposal, that you’re going to find a reason to use it. And so I think the fear about having this quick response force locked and loaded is that they could be used when it’s inappropriate to use them,” Gray told the Alaska Beacon. “Peaceful protest would be the perfect example.”
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