Members of the Idaho National Guard have been deployed in Washington, D.C., since February. Idaho officials did not previously make a public announcement about the deployment.
After a D.C. resident filed a $3 million legal claim this week against the Idaho National Guard for an incident that occurred at her home in May, the Idaho Capital Sun asked about how long troops from Idaho had been in the nation’s capital.
“The D.C. mission was not publicly announced at the time because multiple Idaho National Guard mobilizations were occurring simultaneously, including an overseas deployment in support of combat operations,” Idaho National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Chris Borders said in an email. “Given the heightened operational activity, the Idaho National Guard, in coordination with state and federal leadership, determined that publicly announcing troop movements would have increased operational security and force protection risks.”
Airmen from the 124th Fighter Wing of the Idaho Air National Guard were deployed in late March and early April in support of military action in Iran, Borders told the Sun in April.
Governors from multiple states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands have sent National Guard troops to D.C. as part of a Joint Task Force-DC Mission in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order titled Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful.
As of July 29, there were 99 Idaho National Guard soldiers in D.C., according to the Joint Task Force-DC website.
The Joint Task Force posted a video of Idaho National Guard members patrolling D.C. on Feb. 27. The D.C. National Guard posted another video featuring two Idaho National Guard members on March 20.
The D.C. deployment is paid for with federal funds from the National Guard Bureau, Borders said. The Sun did not receive a response from the National Guard’s Joint Task Force about the cost in time for this story.
Gov. Brad Little’s office said in an emailed statement that he was proud of the support to the D.C. mission.
“Governor Little is proud of Idaho’s citizen-soldiers and the professionalism, dedication, and service they bring to every mission, including Operation Safe and Beautiful,” Little’s Communication Director Emily Callihan said in an email.
Little’s election challengers criticize National Guard deployment
After news broke of the legal claim out of D.C., Little’s November general election challengers criticized the deployment.
“Why are our soldiers being sent away from home to do the federal government’s police work?” Independent candidate and former state Supreme Court Justice John Stegner wrote on Facebook on Thursday. “Why are they being put in situations that lead to confrontations with decorated veterans? And why didn’t we know this was happening?”
“I believe government should operate in the open, not in the shadows,” he said.
Democrat Terri Pickens on Friday called on Little to bring the Idaho National Guard members home.
“They should be nowhere near President Trump’s dangerous and divisive domestic adventures ahead of mid-term elections,” Pickens said in an emailed statement. “We’ll let the courts decide the merits of the $3 million lawsuit filed by a DC woman who claims she was arrested in her home by Idaho Guardsmen. However, if our troops were never loaned out to President Trump to ‘police’ D.C., they’d never have been exposed to this kind of liability.”
She argued more members of the Guard should be deployed to help with ongoing wildfires. Little on July 29 declared a wildfire disaster emergency and deployed the Idaho National Guard to help fight the Big Grass Fire burning along the border of Oregon and Idaho, the Sun previously reported.
Borders told the Sun at the time that he didn’t know the specific number of troops that will be deployed.
“All requests for Idaho National Guard support are routed from the requesting agency through the Idaho Office of Emergency Management to the Idaho National Guard,” Borders said at the time. “Our support, depending on the specific request, could include ground suppression operations like hand crews, heavy equipment and operators, logistics, sustainment and communications capabilities as well as traffic and access control, and evacuation support.”
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