Washington officials rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to take over the city’s police department, and have now sued to stop what they characterized as a grave threat to the city.
On Thursday night, Attorney General Pam Bondi named Drug Enforcement Agency head Terry Cole as “emergency police commissioner” and ordered him to take over the capital’s police department. Bondi’s actions were the latest escalation by President Donald Trump, who has sent armed federal agents to Washington to combat a purported increase in crime, which the data does not support.
In response, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb sent a legal opinion to D.C. police chief Pamela Smith, describing Bondi’s order as “unlawful” and told her she and her department are “not legally obligated to follow it.”
“In reference to the U.S. Attorney General’s order, there is no statute that conveys the District’s personnel authority to a federal official,” D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser wrote in a post accompanying Schwalb’s opinion.
Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith listens as Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser speaks during a news conference on President Donald Trump's plan to place the local police under federal control and deploy National Guard troops to Washington, on Aug. 11.
Zachary Parker, a member of the D.C. city council, echoed Bowser and Schwalb. “This order is a patently unlawful power grab that represents a break-the-glass moment for our democracy. It cannot and will not stand,” he said in a statement.
Schwalb followed up on Friday by suing the administration.
“By illegally declaring a takeover of MPD [Metropolitan Police Department], the Administration is abusing its temporary, limited authority under the law. This is the gravest threat to Home Rule DC has ever faced, and we are fighting to stop it,” Schwalb wrote on X.
In his suit, Schwalb argues that Trump and Bondi’s actions are in violation of the D.C. Home Rule Act, the 1973 law that allows Washington to govern itself with congressional oversight.
Trump and other Republicans have pushed for this power grab over the city—which has a majority Black population and a Black woman as its mayor—with the false claim that crime has gone up. Government statistics showed that crime has significantly declined in Washington and reached a 30-year low in 2024 under former President Joe Biden.
The Trump administration has been desperate to make national headlines about issues less damaging to Trump. Recently, he has faced enormous criticism for covering up files related to the investigation into accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, and for the cratering economy.
Federal officials sent to Washington on Trump’s orders have not been dealing with a crime surge. Instead, they are often dealing with mundane issues, like moped accidents, unbuckled seatbelts, and a drunk man who threw a sandwich at law enforcement.
Former Fox News conspiracy theorist Jeanine Pirro, who now serves as the U.S. attorney in D.C., complained in an X post that the administration has been mocked for pursuing felony charges against the sandwich-thrower.
“Let me be clear, if you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer, be certain we will come after you with the full weight of the law,” she wrote.
According to videos of the encounter, the man in question did not seem to “lay a hand”—he threw a sandwich. But the episode exposes the absurdity of the administration’s case and why city officials are pushing back on the power grab.
