Declaration of a crime emergency in the District of Columbia
On 11 August 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump declared a crime emergency in the District of Columbia, placing the D.C. police department under federal control, and deploying the District of Columbia National Guard within the city, citing section 740 of the District of Columbia Self-Government and Governmental Reorganization Act (Public Law 93-198), as amended (section 740 of the Home Rule Act), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code. The White House also concurrently published a related memorandum addressed to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth setting additional parameters, including directing Hegseth to coordinate with State Governors to authorize the orders of any additional members of other states’ National Guards to active service, as deemed necessary and appropriate to augment the President’s intent.
On 15 August 2025, D.C. officials and the Justice Department worked out an agreement altering a 14 August 2025 order from Attorney General Pam Bondi that had named Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Terry Cole as the emergency D.C. police commissioner, which would have removed D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith from the department’s chain of command for purposes of the emergency. This agreement followed D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb’s challenge to the lawfulness of Bondi’s 14 August 2025 order, and the filing of a lawsuit in federal court requesting a restraining order against enactment of Bondi’s order, and U.S. District Court Judge Ana Reyes indicating she would grant the restraining order unless an agreement to the order could be reached. Further details on the agreement that was reached can be found here.
Also on 15 August 2025, U.S. Congressional representatives Jamie Raskin and Robert Garcia, the top Democrats on the House Judiciary and the Oversight and Government Reform committees, joined D.C. Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton in introducing a joint resolution to terminate the 11 August 2025 emergency declaration. U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen planned to introduce a Senate version of the joint resolution as well. Given Republican control of the U.S. House and Senate, the joint resolution will almost certainly not pass, and even were it to pass, it is highly unlikely that the President would sign it into law. Further details on features of the joint resolution can be found here.
On 19 August 2025, the editorially independent, non-partisan, daily digital law and policy journal Just Security published their thorough analysis of the overall state of the situation, one week into the emergency, entitled “One Week of Trump’s DC Takeover Attempt: An analysis of the president’s use of military, police, and security services in the nation’s capital,” which can also be found on our Additional Resources page.
ISSE will be following this story as it develops.
Photo by Vlad Gorshkov on Unsplash.
