From PBS NewsHour.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., questioned Attorney General Pam Bondi Tuesday during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to U.S. cities, including Chicago and Memphis.

Tillis asked Bondi whether the federal presence there was intended to be a “necessary evil” until the city leaders can tackle violent crime themselves, or whether deployment of troops was “best practice.”

When Bondi responded that the National Guard was necessary to protect federal buildings from protesters, Tillis said that wasn’t his concern, but rather that he senses troops have “become an arm of local law enforcement.”

“I don’t believe our National Guard want to be doing that, but they’re going to be where they have to be to keep Americans safe,” Bondi replied.

Ultimately, Tillis said, he worried that the federal presence is masking the need for local officials to take more accountability for safety and crime.

“I see 3.5 years from now, if we don’t address the systemic problems, that what we’ve basically done is given a governor and mayor and city councilman a pass on failing to protect their people,” Tillis said.

“I was formerly Speaker of the House in North Carolina. If I thought I had to have the president deploy troops to keep North Carolina safe, I would have considered myself a failure as a state leader. And so I just hope we strike the balance so that we’re not fixing a problem temporarily, only to come back, maybe even worse than the problem we’re fixing, the moment this president who’s committed to local safety leaves.”

The oversight hearing, focused on the Department of Justice, comes on the heels of a number of controversial decisions from the agency. That includes the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey that came days after Trump directly called on Bondi in a social media post to prosecute Comey and other perceived political foes.

Ahead of Bondi’s testimony, more than 280 former DOJ employees wrote a letter urging Congress for more oversight due to the “degradation” of oaths to the Constitution and to upholding the law under the Trump administration.

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