Why D.C. is taking Trump to court over MPD
This could be the first of many lawsuits over D.C.’s ability to govern itself.
D.C. is fighting back.
On Friday, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb filed a federal lawsuit challenging President Trump’s most recent push to take day-to-day control over the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), calling it “brazenly unlawful” and the “gravest threat to Home Rule that the District has ever faced.”
The lawsuit follows hot on the heels of an order issued by Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday that sought to put the Trump administration in full daily control of MPD, sidelining current leadership and enabling it to dictate not just what police should do – but also the way they should do it.
The move shocked D.C. officials who were carefully trying to balance working with Trump – who on Monday used his legal powers to expand federal presence in law enforcement in the city – with protecting what limited local control they already have. That balance has now been thrown off; it’s more clear that Trump is aggressively testing the bounds of the law, and that what he’s trying now could be just the start of a broader push to control D.C.
What this is all about
As you probably know, on Monday, Trump invoked a provision of the Home Rule Charter that lets him take over MPD for 30 days. That provision is carefully worded, though: it gives the president the right to “direct the Mayor to provide him, and the Mayor shall provide, such services of the Metropolitan Police force as the President may deem necessary and appropriate.”
On Thursday night, Bondi seemed to take this a step further. She declared that DEA administrator Terry Cole was taking daily control of the police department, largely pushing aside current Chief Pamela Smith. Bondi also repealed a number of police orders – documents detailing how cops should operate – related to the city’s sanctuary law, which limits cooperation on federal immigration enforcement.
What D.C. is arguing
D.C. officials were quick to respond to Bondi, and their response was clear: Not so fast.
Citing a legal opinion from Attorney General Brian Schwalb, Mayor Muriel Bowser tweeted: “There is no statute that conveys the District’s personnel authority to a federal official.” Put more plainly, she said that while Trump can ask MPD to do certain things, he can’t order officers to do them in a certain way, much less can he take over the daily operations of the department wholesale.
Now, Schwalb and Bowser aren’t challenging Trump’s ability to “request services” from MPD, services that MPD has to provide. Rather, they are more narrowly pushing back on exactly how much control Trump has over MPD. The president seems to think it’s essentially absolute; Bowser and Schwalb say it’s actually pretty limited.
“[Bondi’s order] installs a handpicked federal official as chief of police, grants him sweeping power to issue commands directly to MPD, and bars MPD senior leadership from acting without his approval. It also purports to suspend MPD policies that Defendant Bondi dislikes, impose enforcement policies she favors, and rescind any existing orders that stand in the way. In short, it attempts to divest the District and its residents of any control of their local police force and place it, for all purposes, under the control of the federal government,” reads the lawsuit. “[The Home Rule Charter] does not authorize this brazen usurpation of the District’s authority over its own government.”
Additionally, the lawsuit targets two other issues: for what purposes Trump can actually request services from MPD, and whether he’s even allowed to request them right now.
The Home Rule Charter says the president can request MPD’s services when “special conditions of an emergency nature exist.” According to the Trump administration, crime in D.C. is that emergency. But the charter also says the president would need MPD for “federal purposes.” In the lawsuit, Schwalb says there’s no actual crime emergency in D.C., and that even if there was, Bondi’s order is pushing way beyond just “federal purposes” and directly into local policing.
Why D.C. is fighting back now
As we’ve reported plenty, ever since Trump took office, Bowser has largely tried to stay out of his way and occasionally throw him a symbolic or real bone to keep him thinking he’s getting his way. It’s been a tenuous and uncomfortable balance she’s tried to strike, and it started falling apart this week when Trump claimed control of MPD and deployed federal law enforcement officers and the National Guard in D.C.
Even then, Bowser tried to play the role of cooperator-in-chief, saying MPD would work with the federal government and even throwing Trump a big bone by saying police would now help – a bit – on immigration enforcement.
But Bondi’s Thursday order completely shattered the illusion that Bowser could cooperate on friendly terms with Trump. Instead, it made clear that this is about power – and that Bowser shouldn’t actually think she has any. (Sources tell The 51st that Bowser was skeptical of the value of litigation until Bondi's order, which changed her thinking.) And just as Trump has pushed aggressively to claim the broadest powers possible in many other areas, so too would he do so when it comes to D.C.’s already limited ability to govern itself.
In essence, this lawsuit is the first attempt to head off what could be future legal fights over MPD and D.C.’s self-governance as a whole. Trump has already foreshadowed what those fights might be – and the main one is just how long he can claim to control MPD. The charter says 30 days, unless Congress agrees to an extension. Trump said this week he wants those extensions, and he will get them whether or not Congress agrees.
But this legal fight is also more broadly about how best MPD can fight crime. While Trump has clearly said he wants police to play rougher and be more aggressive, Bowser and Smith have highlighted the importance of MPD being trusted by the communities they police. Should Bondi’s order hold, that trust could take a huge hit. That’s because her order specifically gives her the authority to change the rules and regulations governing how police operate — rules and regulations that are nominally crafted in response to local expectations and lived experiences.
Take body cameras. D.C. officers have been using them for almost a decade; when they were first rolled out, city officials said they were a means to increase transparency and accountability. Now, there are remaining questions as to how much they have done that, but there is no question that they have changed local policing. (Every time a D.C. police officer shoots someone, there is video evidence of it – and it is often made public.) Under Bondi’s expansive order, Trump could just declare that MPD officers no longer need them, or they can more freely stop anyone on the street for any reason – or no reason at all — or that they’re more free to use deadly force. The list goes on.
In a declaration that accompanies the lawsuit, Smith warned that the Bondi order “would upend the command structure of MPD, endangering the safety of the public and law enforcement officers alike. 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.”
Finally, this does come back to D.C.’s ability to govern itself. Bondi said her order repealed the police orders on how they should and should not deal with immigration enforcement. (MPD officers have not traditionally asked about immigration status when someone is arrested, and won’t hold someone longer than legally allowed because ICE wants to pick them up – unless there is a warrant out for them.) But those orders are based on a law passed by the D.C. Council. Bondi is in effect telling police to ignore an existing law passed by the city’s elected representatives.
If she and Trump can do that with immigration enforcement, what else?
What’s next
Schwalb is asking for an immediate temporary restraining order — for a federal judge to temporarily stop Bondi from enforcing her new order. But he’s also asking for a judge to do the same with Trump’s broader executive order issued earlier this week. A hearing is set for 2 p.m. Friday.
Should those be granted, D.C. and MPD would enter something of a holding pattern where things mostly return to normal, minus all the federal enforcement officers and National Guardsmen everywhere.
But it wouldn’t be the end of the story, obviously. Trump fights challenges to his power aggressively in court, and in many cases, federal judges have given him big wins.
In case you missed it, yesterday, Martin answered questions from readers about what we know so far:
Martin Austermuhle
