WASHINGTON, D. C. (TIP): Late yesterday, DC mayor Muriel Bowser hit back against Pam Bondi’s move to put DEA chief Terry Cole in charge of the capital’s police department. In a post on X, Bowser wrote: “there is no statute that conveys the District’s personnel authority to a federal official”.
She also said that her office have “followed the law” and provided the services of the DC police at the request of the president, as outlined in Section 740 of the Home Rule Act.
Bowser also reposted a letter from DC attorney general Brian Schwalb, addressed to the mayor, which said that Bondi’s order is “unlawful” and Bowser is “not legally obligated to follow it”.
According to the federal lawsuit filed by the DC government today, the Trump administration has engaged in “a brazen usurpation of the District’s authority over its own government”.
The suit says that the president’s move to federalize the DC police, and attorney general Pam Bondi’s order to install DEA administrator Terry Cole as “emergency police commissioner”, both “exceed the narrow delegation that Congress granted the President in Section 740”.
A reminder, earlier this week the president invoked Section 740 of the DC Home Rule Act, which grants him a 30-day period to control the district’s local law enforcement if he declares a safety emergency. To get an extension, the president would need Congress’s approval.
The president has said that violent crime in DC – which the justice department says experienced a 30-year low in 2024 – is “the worst it’s ever been”.
The lawsuit also states that Section 740 only requires that the DC mayor “provide services” of the Metropolitan police department (MPD) to federal government, but “does not permit the President to seize control of MPD. Nor does it authorize the President to direct MPD in the policing of local crime.”