Republican Gov. Phil Scott has “politely declined” a federal request to deploy Vermont National Guard soldiers to Washington, D.C. as part of President Donald Trump’s controversial directive to tamp down on crime.

At Trump’s behest, the federal government has taken control of the capital city’s police force and dispatched approximately 800 National Guard troops, as well as roughly 500 federal law enforcement agents, to patrol the streets.

Their numbers could have included a “few dozen” soldiers from Vermont, according to Scott’s chief of staff, Jason Gibbs, had the governor not rebuffed a preliminary request from the Pentagon last week.

“While public safety is a legitimate concern in cities across the country and certainly in the nation’s capital, in the absence of an immediate emergenc

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