DC Sues Trump Administration Over Takeover of City

Miami Herald

3 days ago

EDITORS NOTE: EDS: MOVES 1st reference to Bondi to 2nd graf from graf "Mayor Muriel Bowser ..."; ADDS graf "The suit asks ..."; EXPANDS graf "The city's lawsuit ...".); (ART ADV: With photo.); (With: DC-FEDS-POLICING
The District of Columbia government filed a lawsuit Friday challenging the Trump administration's "brazen usurpation" of the city's authority by trying to take control the D.C. Police Department, in a marked escalation of tensions between local and federal authorities in the nation's capital.
The suit argues that both President Donald Trump's executive order Monday federalizing the Police Department and a follow-up order by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi "far exceed" the president's authority under the Home Rule Act of 1973, which granted D.C. its limited degree of self-government.
Such an attempt to "upend the command structure of the Police Department" risks "endangering the safety of the public and law enforcement officers alike," the suit says, using the Trump administration's argument for public safety against it.
The suit asks the court for an injunction against Bondi's order and a declaration that the administration's actions are unconstitutional and a violation of the Home Rule Act.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court by the D.C. attorney general, Brian Schwalb, comes after the Trump administration moved Thursday to expand its control of the city's Police Department by installing an "emergency commissioner" and revoking policies that limited officers' cooperation with immigration enforcement.
Schwalb, a Democrat who was elected in 2022, has been outspoken from the outset in criticizing the federal takeover of D.C. police and the deployment of the National Guard, calling the moves "unnecessary and unlawful."
In a statement Friday morning, Schwalb said the administration was "abusing its limited, temporary authority under the Home Rule Act, infringing on the district's right to self-governance and putting the safety of D.C. residents and visitors at risk."
"This is the gravest threat to Home Rule that the district has ever faced, and we are fighting to stop it," he said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mayor Muriel Bowser had been, for the most part, diplomatic in her comments this week. But that tone changed late Thursday after Bondi issued an order rescinding the city's policing policies governing immigration enforcement. That order also declared that Terry Cole, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, was now the "emergency police commissioner," with "all the powers and duties" invested in the city's police chief, Pamela A. Smith.
Schwalb issued a legal opinion saying Bondi's order was "unlawful," and that the mayor was "not legally obligated to follow it." Bowser posted the letter on social media, saying the city had followed the law but that "there is no statute that conveys the district's personnel authority to a federal official." The lawsuit, which lists Trump, Bondi and Cole as defendants, as well as the U.S. Department of Justice and the DEA, expands upon that opinion.
Trump's executive order was based on a section of the Home Rule Act that explicitly gives presidents temporary authority to "direct the mayor to provide him" such services of deemed "necessary and appropriate" to address "special conditions of an emergency nature."
That order declared a "crime emergency" in the city, and in announcing the order Trump said he was "placing the D.C. Metropolitan Police under direct federal control." While Bowser later that day acknowledged that the president had the authority to order the services of the Metropolitan Police, she said Smith was still in command.
But on Thursday, Bondi issued her order installing Cole in command of the police.
The city's lawsuit argues that this order was a violation of the Home Rule Act, which does not grant presidents "operational control" over the police. It also says the law limits presidents to using the police for "federal purposes," not the managing enforcement of local laws. The suit challenged that the emergency the president cited to justify his order was overly broad, saying it refers to crime in general, "and declining crime at that."
The president's executive order Monday said crime in D.C. had "a dire impact on the federal government's ability to operate efficiently to address the nation's broader interests."
The suit is the latest attempt by local jurisdictions to push back legally at the administration's broad assertion of federal power.
The state of California sued the Trump administration after the president deployed thousands of National Guard troops and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles this summer, after protests broke out against aggressive immigration enforcement. A federal judge ruled that the deployment was unconstitutional, but an appeals court disagreed, arguing that the president had acted within his authority. While most of the soldiers have returned home, that litigation is ongoing.
Washington is in a different position, given the many limitations on its autonomy under federal law.
The section of the Home Rule Act giving the president some authority over local police says this authority terminates after the end of the declared emergency, an act of Congress or a period of 30 days, whichever comes first. Trump has said he will seek from Congress "long term extensions" of his control over the D.C. police.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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