Declaration of a crime emergency in the District of Columbia
On December 17, 2025, the three judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that President Donald Trump “possesses a unique power” to mobilize the National Guard in Washington, DC, a federal district, given Washington’s unique position lacking the sovereignty of a state, a ruling which also raised doubts about the lawfulness of deployments in other cities. The Court noted that it would be “constitutionally troubling” for the president to borrow National Guard troops from one state to conduct law enforcement missions in another “non-consenting” state. the Trump administration separately awaits a decision from the Supreme Court about President Trump’s deployment of national Guard troops to the Chicago area. The Justice Department had filed an emergency appeal seeking to resume the National Guard deployment there, but the justices have left the request pending for two months without a ruling, allowing a lower court’s block to remain in place. For more on the December 17 decision, please see this article, and this one.
On December 4, 2025, the same three judge U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted the Trump Administrations’s request to halt the lower court judge’s November 20, 2025, order concluding that President Trump’s deployment of 2000 National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., was illegal. As a result of the December 4, 2025, ruling, the suit filed by the D.C. attorney general continued. The December 4, 2025, U.S. Court of Appeals opinion can be found here.
On November 20, 2025, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb published this 61-page ruling, characterizing the deployment of the National Guard as illegal, determining that the President lacked authority to deploy these troops “for the deterrence of crime.” Cobb noted that despite President Trump being commander in chief of the National Guard, a president’s power is constrained by federal laws that limit how those troops can be federalized and deployed, and even more so with the D.C. National Guard, a city under the purview and control of the Congress. “The Court rejects Defendants’ fly-by assertion of constitutional power, finding that such a broad reading of the President’s Article II authority would erase Congress’s role in governing the District and its National Guard.” Cobb’s ruling also determined that the Pentagon lacked authority to send 1000 out-of-state National Guard troops into D.C. to further support the declared law enforcement mission. The November 20 order was postponed by Cobb from coming into effect until December 11, 2025, in order to give the Trump Administration time to appeal the decision.
On August 11, 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 August 15, 2025, D.C. officials and the Justice Department worked out an agreement altering an August 14, 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 August 14, 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 August 15, 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 August 11, 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 was largely irrelevant, 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 August 19 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.
