Overview

• Attorney General Pam Bondi’s directive names DEA Administrator Terry Cole as “emergency police commissioner” with full authority over the Metropolitan Police Department and rescinds sanctuary-related policies.
• Mayor Muriel Bowser and Attorney General Brian Schwalb have refused to recognize Cole’s authority and filed an emergency lawsuit seeking to block the takeover.
• Some 800 National Guard troops and federal agents remain deployed across Washington, conducting monument security, checkpoints, traffic control and crowd-management missions.
• The legal battle will test the limits of the president’s 30-day emergency powers under the 1973 Home Rule Act and raise Posse Comitatus questions alongside parallel litigation in California.
• The administration portrays the move as a crime crackdown linked to immigration enforcement despite data showing violent crime in D.C. at multi-decade lows.