Trump Just Launched a New Assault on D.C.’s Home Rule. It’s Brazenly Illegal.

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On Thursday, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi launched arguably the most lawless assault on the District of Columbia in its 52 years of home rule. Bondi purported to appoint Terry Cole, current head of the DEA, as D.C.’s new police chief—pushing aside its actual chief, Pamela Smith, who was appointed pursuant to federal and local statutes. She then claimed to repeal a series of “sanctuary” policies that limit D.C. cops’ ability to enforce federal immigration law. And she directed officers to “fully enforce” a measure that criminalizes “unlawful” demonstrations, evidently in response to District residents protesting federal enforcement actions.

In response to this unprecedented seizure of power, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb filed a lawsuit Friday morning seeking to restrain Bondi’s takeover of the local police. His suit stands a very strong chance of success. No one doubts that the federal government has significant authority over the District, far more than it has over any state. And everyone agrees that President Donald Trump may temporarily compel D.C.’s police to provide “services” for “federal purposes.” But Congress has not given the president a sweeping power to commandeer the District’s police, replace its chief, or repeal its policies. Nor does the Constitution vest any such power in the president or his appointees. To the contrary, the Constitution assigns ultimate authority over D.C. to Congress. The Trump administration’s bid to blow past those limits is patently illegal.

Although Trump likes to tout his prerogative to “take over” the District, the president has no such freestanding right. The Constitution awards Congress—not the executive branch—the power to “exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever” over D.C. In 1973, Congress exercised that authority by passing the Home Rule Act, which handed District residents far greater control over their own government. Among other things, the act allowed Washingtonians to elect their own council and mayor. Before its passage, Congress debated who should appoint the chief of the Metropolitan Police Department (or MPD), the District’s police force. Some members introduced an amendment that would let the president choose the chief. But Congress emphatically rejected it, giving the appointment power to the mayor, with advice and consent of the Council. As the author of the act, Rep. Stewart B. McKinney, explained on the House floor, allowing the president to pick the police chief would strike “very deeply at the entire heart of the subject of home rule.”

Instead, Congress offered the president extremely narrow authority to enlist the assistance of MPD for limited periods on rare occasions. The Home Rule Act states that when the president “determines that special conditions of an emergency nature exist” that require MPD “for federal purposes,” he may “direct the mayor to provide him” with its “services” as he deems “necessary and appropriate.” The act further states that the mayor “shall provide” him with such services. This emergency power lasts 48 hours unless the president notifies Congress, in which case it’s extended to 30 days. It may only last longer if authorized by a congressional resolution.

This provision of the law explains why D.C. officials initially complied when, on Monday, Trump claimed to “federalize” the city. At first, Mayor Muriel Bowser acknowledged that the president could seek MPD’s assistance with stepped-up law enforcement, while insisting that Pamela Smith—the duly appointed chief of police—remained in charge of the force. (Bowser doubted an “emergency” existed at all, but suggested that she must defer to the president’s judgment.) That’s why MPD officers have worked alongside federal agents and National Guardsmen in their largely aimless patrols of the city.

But the administration did not accept this arrangement, prompting Bondi’s hostile takeover of MPD on Thursday evening. Bondi now asserts that the Home Rule Act gives her discretion to appoint Trump’s DEA leader as D.C.’s new police chief. She also ordered MPD officers to enforce federal immigration law, including the arrest and detention of undocumented immigrants, a practice expressly forbidden by District laws. And she instructed MPD to vigorously enforce a prohibition against “unlawful” demonstrations, presumably as a means to break up growing protests against federal arrests in the city. (By far the largest “unlawful” demonstration in D.C. in recent memory was the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol; Trump pardoned every participant on his first day back in office.)

It was this overreach that finally spurred Schwalb, the District’s elected attorney general, to sue. (The case has been assigned to Judge Ana Reyes, a liberal Biden appointee, who scheduled a hearing for Friday afternoon.) As Schwalb explained, the Home Rule Act allows the president to enlist “services” from MPD “for federal purposes”; it does not let him or his appointees command MPD themselves, even in an emergency. Yet Bondi has now nullified the mayor’s right to appoint the police chief and oversee the force through her. The Home Rule Act enshrines these rights into federal statute. Bondi seeks to violate them twice over—not only by replacing the police chief, but also by removing the mayor from MPD’s chain of command entirely. Even in case of an emergency, the law permits the executive branch to obtain “services” from the mayor, not to bypass her completely. This circumvention clashes with Congress’ command; it cannot be squared with the law.

Because Bondi may not take over the D.C. police, her orders issued pursuant to that unlawful action are inherently invalid. Even if they weren’t, though, the Home Rule Act would not authorize them. As Schwalb noted, the law only compels the mayor to provide MPD’s “services.” It does not give the president or his attorney general the standalone power to issue or repeal MPD policies; such sweeping directives have no plausible connection to the provision of police “services.” Moreover, this assistance is limited to “federal purposes,” a term that typically connotes the protection of federal personnel or property. But both Bondi and Trump have stated that they intend to usurp control over local matters, putting MPD under their command to manage day-to-day policing. The Home Rule Act forbids this presidential micromanagement of the force.

It is worth noting that in addition to its illegality, Bondi’s move will undermine her professed goal of making D.C. safer. In a remarkable declaration filed Friday, Smith—MPD’s actual chief—wrote: “In my nearly three decades in law enforcement, I have never seen a single government action that would cause a greater threat to law and order than this dangerous directive.” Imposing “an entirely new command structure,” she attested, would “wreak operational havoc within MPD,” “create tremendous risk for the public,” and “inevitably lead to delays and confusion.” This chaos would put “the lives of MPD officers and District residents at grave risk.” Bondi’s new policies, Smith wrote, would also “divert law enforcement resources away from other priorities, such as preventing and responding to crimes of violence, weapons offenses, narcotics operations, and burglary prevention and response.” In short, a federal takeover would make it harder, in every conceivable way, for MPD to fight crime in D.C. (Officers appears to be treating Cole, the DEA leader, as the legitimate chief for the moment.)

In many ways, Trump’s assault on the District serves as a test run for future attempts to target other large, diverse American cities. Yet D.C. is uniquely vulnerable to the president’s overreach because it lacks statehood and the sovereignty that comes with it. This vulnerability may tempt some Washingtonians to assume that there is nothing their city can do to fight back against Trump’s abuses. Such learned helplessness would be a serious mistake. Congress has given D.C. a significant measure of home rule, including control of its police force. The president has no legal authority to rip that away, and the courts have an obligation to stop him from trying.

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