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Washington sues to stop federal takeover of police department
It came after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi issued an order late Aug. 14 transferring control of the police department from the city to the DEA's Cole.
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Reuters - Fri, 15, Aug 2025
- 12:54 EDT
- 11
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FILE PHOTO: Police detain a person in the Brightwood neighborhood after U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement of the federal takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department under the Home Rule Act and the deployment of the National Guard to assist in crime prevention in the nation's capital, in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 14, 2025. / REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo
The U.S. capital Washington sued Donald Trump on Aug. 15 over his attempted takeover of the city's police force, escalating a power struggle between the U.S. president and the city's leadership.
D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb filed a lawsuit challenging Trump's attempt to take control of the district's police force, hours after the Trump administration named Drug Enforcement Administration head Terry Cole as the "emergency police commissioner" in Washington with all the powers of a police chief.
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Schwalb said the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, aims to get a ruling that Trump's takeover of the city's police department is illegal. A hearing is scheduled for 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT)
It came after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi issued an order late Aug. 14 transferring control of the police department from the city to the DEA's Cole.
Trump said on Aug. 11 he was deploying hundreds of National Guard troops to Washington and temporarily taking over the city's police department to curb what he has depicted as a crime emergency in the U.S. capital, though statistics show incidents of violent crime have dropped. Washington has a population of about 700,000.
As part of that action, federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, the DEA, and Customs and Border Patrol, have deployed agents to patrol the streets and carry out arrests.
Bondi's order said the city must receive approval from Cole before it can issue any directives to the roughly 3,500-member police force. It also sought to rescind several of the police department's prior directives, including one that addressed its level of involvement with federal immigration enforcement.
A Justice Department spokesperson did not have any immediate comment on the lawsuit that described Bondi's actions as a "brazen usurpation of the District’s authority over its own government."
In a social media post on Aug. 15, Schwalb wrote, "This is the gravest threat to Home Rule DC has ever faced, and we are fighting to stop it."
The 1973 D.C. Home Rule Act is a federal law that established local self-governance for the District of Columbia.
It includes a provision that gives the U.S. president the power to control the D.C. Police in response to "special conditions of an emergency nature" for up to 30 days. The 30-day period can be extended only by a joint resolution of both chambers of the U.S. Congress, something Trump has suggested he might seek.
Some legal experts said Trump has exceeded his authority under the Home Rule Act, arguing the text of the statute does not authorize a complete presidential takeover of the police force.
Williams Banks, a professor of national security law at Syracuse University, said DC's attorney general has "very solid arguments" that Trump has exceeded the authority granted to him by Congress, but the unprecedented nature of Trump's actions makes it difficult to assess what a judge will do.
"There's no playbook for this," Banks said. "There's no precedent either way."
The lawsuit, which names Trump, Bondi, Cole, and others as defendants, intensifies a growing battle over Washington between Bondi and Mayor Muriel Bowser, who have emerged as the public faces of the power struggle.
Bowser, a Democrat, has criticized the deployment of troops onto Washington's streets, and decried the move to attempt a federal takeover of the city's police force.
"Let us be clear about what the law requires during a Presidential declared emergency: it requires the mayor of Washington, DC to provide the services of the Metropolitan Police Department for federal purposes at the request of the President," Bowser said in a statement on Aug. 14 after Bondi named Cole as the police department head.
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