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 - Just Security
Title: 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
Source: Just Security
Date of Publication: 19 August 2025
Authors: Joseph Nunn and Spencer Reynolds.
Joseph Nunn is a Counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program, where his research focuses on federal and state emergency powers and the domestic role of the U.S. military.
Spencer Reynolds (Bluesky - LinkedIn - X) is senior counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. Previously, he was senior intelligence counsel in the Office of the General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Introduction: A week ago, President Donald Trump and members of his cabinet announced a takeover of law enforcement functions in Washington, D.C. using three tools: deployment of elements of the D.C. National Guard (and National Guard troops from several cooperating states as well), invocation of a statutory emergency power to requisition the services of the city’s Metropolitan Police Department, and a surge of federal law enforcement to the city’s streets, including Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other federal agents. Over the past week, 800 D.C. National Guardsmen have been mobilized for operations in the city, with hundreds more state National Guardsmen on their way, and 500 newly deployed immigration and other federal agents are patrolling the streets or have set up checkpoints. At the same time, the district and the White House have engaged in a power struggle over control of the city’s police department.
According to the White House, these moves were necessitated by “out-of-control” violent crime in the district—a view contradicted by city and federal statistics showing a significant downward trend. Regardless of crime levels in the city, however, the use of National Guard forces raises significant legal questions, including the specter of potential Posse Comitatus Act violations. Moreover, the ebb and flow of local crime is not an “emergency” that could justify a federal takeover of the D.C. police. And as shown recently in Los Angeles, the surge of homeland security agents can lead to aggressive, escalatory policing practices with little accountability or oversight.
At the same time, the president signaled that D.C. may be a testing ground for this strategy, to be replicated in other cities where the White House has exaggerated crime rates and complained about sanctuary laws and political opposition. But there are legal guardrails against such actions. The president’s authority over state National Guard forces is more limited than his authority over the D.C. National Guard, while the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution blocks the federal government from commandeering police departments in the states or revamping their policing policies and priorities.
Website: https://www.justsecurity.org/119227/trumps-dc-takeover/#
