Trump threatens think tank with lawsuit over disagreement with National Guard effect on crime

Suing a think tank because you didn't like their crime numbers is not how you win an argument, and it's not how you should want to win one. If the National Guard deployments are working, the data will show it. If they're not, threatening Chandler Hall and the Center for American Progress with lawyers doesn't change the underlying trend lines, it just makes people wonder what you're afraid the trend lines actually say.

We've defended the Guard deployments on the merits. Federal support in cities that asked for it, or badly needed it, is a legitimate use of executive authority, and plenty of local officials quietly welcomed the help even while publicly grumbling. That case can be made with crime stats, before-and-after comparisons, precinct data, whatever. It doesn't need a lawsuit threat against a policy shop for publishing a report the White House disagrees with.

CAP is about as reliably left-leaning as think tanks get, and their report was clearly aimed at undercutting an administration talking point. Fine. That's what think tanks do, and the answer to a bad or biased report is a better one, not a subpoena. Going after donors too, if that's really the plan, starts to look less like correcting the record and more like intimidation.

Trump's instinct to fight back against hostile coverage isn't the problem here. Presidents get hit with skewed studies constantly and pushing back is fair game. But there's a difference between pushing back and threatening litigation over a policy dispute dressed up as research. If the deployments are the success the administration says they are, let the numbers do the arguing.