Gov. Jay Nixon continues to look like the man with no plan jumping from crisis to crisis. President Obama and Attorney General Holder have focused attention and resources on Ferguson and its problems. Last week Obama and Nixon were reported to have discussed a variety of options including the use of the Missouri national guard. Now we learn form The Guardian's live blog that when Nixon decided to actually use the guard he did not consult with the White House in advance.
Missouri governor Jay Nixon did not tell the White House that he was calling in the national guard, an administration official was reported to have told journalists on Monday, reports The Guardian’s Dan Roberts.
“Folks didn’t know,” BuzzFeed quoted one administration official as revealing. “The White House did not know they were sending it in.”
Though not required by law because Missouri guard troops are under the command of state governor Jay Nixon, a lack of prior warning would be an embarrassment to the president who has repeatedly stressed how his administration is paying close attention to the way local authorities are handling the crisis despite it falling during the president’s vacation in Martha’s Vineyard.
Attorney general Eric Holder had previously urged a demilitarisation of the response by police in Ferguson, allegedly telling his deputies on Thursday to “tell them to remove the damn tanks”, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Six separate arms of Holder’s Department of Justice are involved in the crisis, including a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe into possible civil rights violations in the killing of Michael Brown, and Holder is due to give Obama an update on the situation in the White House on Monday afternoon as both men returned to Washington for meetings.
The White House did not immediately respond to requests on Monday to clarify how much warning it had received of governor Nixon’s decision on Sunday night to request a national guard deployment in Ferguson.
National guards troops are under the command and control of state governors unless they are called for federal duty by order of the president. Nixon has no legal obligation to consult in advance with the federal government, but certainly it would seem like an appropriate step in the interest of coordination in a chaotic situation. Local, state and federal officials have repeatedly demonstrated that they are not on the same page.