D.C. Sues Trump Administration Over Seizing Control of District Police
The suit calls for injunctive and declaratory relief to prevent the “brazen usurpation” of the District’s independence.
Published by The Lawfare Institute
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On Friday, the District of Columbia filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s attempts to assume control of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). The lawsuit followed Attorney General Pam Bondi’s announcement Thursday naming Terrence Cole, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, as the District’s “emergency police commissioner.” The suit seeks “a preliminary and permanent injunction, declaratory relief, vacatur, and all other appropriate relief to ensure that control of MPD remains with the people of the District of Columbia.”
The District claims that the Trump administration’s attempted takeover of the MPD violates the Home Rule Act of 1973, which empowers D.C. residents to govern themselves. The District’s suit further contends that although Section 740 of the act grants the president some power—namely, to require the D.C. mayor to provide services to the MPD for federal purposes if “special conditions of an emergency nature exist”—President Trump exceeded this power in seizing control of the MPD and directing the MPD in local policing matters. The filing also claims that President Trump failed to define the “special” and “emergency” conditions that led him to invoke Section 740 and details the risks posed by a federal takeover:
These unlawful assertions of authority will create immediate, devastating, and irreparable harms for the District. Most critically, the order threatens to upend the command structure of MPD and wreak operational havoc within the department, endangering the safety of the public and law enforcement officers alike. There is no greater risk to public safety in a large, professional law enforcement organization like MPD than to not know who is in command.
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