DC Mayor Agrees to Testify at House Hearing on GW Protests

District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) will testify before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday in a hearing focused on pro-Palestinian protests at George Washington University (GW).

A committee spokesperson confirmed her attendance Tuesday, nearly a week after she was invited by the panel chair to testify. Bowser’s office also confirmed to The Hill that she will testify tomorrow.

The hearing follows a visit to the GW campus and its pro-Palestine camp by members of the Oversight Committee, including Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Florida) and Rep. Colo.) . During the visit, some lawmakers clashed verbally with protesters, and Boebert expressed his displeasure with a Palestinian flag on a statue of George Washington near the camp.

“If the faculty here, a lot of them are involved in this right now — I’ve had people proudly saying they’re teachers — and not wanting to remove a Palestinian plaque from the statue of George Washington. If they don’t want to do something about it? Well, then kiss your federal funding goodbye,” Boebert said at the time.

On the day of that visit, Comer announced a hearing focused on the protests at GW and called Bowser and Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith as witnesses. The Washington Post reported Late last month, MPD decided not to accept requests from GW employees to clean up the encampment at the university shortly after it began.

“The House Oversight Committee is deeply concerned about reports indicating that the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department rejected George Washington University’s request for assistance in removing radical, anti-Semitic and lawless protesters occupying the campus and grounds neighboring public buildings,” Comer said in a statement.

D.C. police later defended their decision not to clear the camp as they went along, with Smith stating that if the camp remains peaceful, it will not be cleaned, according to a report from NBC Washington.

“I think here in the District of Columbia we give people the opportunity to have freedom of speech, and that’s what we’re seeing now. There was no violence, no violent behavior, no confrontations,” Smith said, according to an MPD spokesperson. “If behavior changes, our procedures and processes may change.”

The Hill reached out to GW.

Updated at 3:37 p.m.

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