Trump Directs AG to Fully Implement Death Penalty in Washington, DC

‘We can’t allow [murder] to happen. People come in from Iowa to look at the Lincoln Memorial, and they end up getting killed,’ the president said.

Members of the National Guard patrol at Union Station in Washington on Aug. 14, 2025. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Sept. 25 directing his attorney general to fully implement the death penalty in Washington, D.C.

Signed in the Oval Office on Thursday, the document refers to capital punishment as “an essential part” of the U.S. legal system in deterring and punishing the “most reprehensible crimes that often involve grotesque and lethal violence against innocent Americans.”