WASHINGTON — Attorney General Pam Bondi further cemented the Trump administration's takeover of D.C. law enforcement Thursday by shifting decision-making authority from its police chief and handing it to the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, drawing pushback from the city's mayor.
Mayor Muriel Bowser wrote in a post to X late Thursday that "there is no statute that conveys the District’s personnel authority to a federal official."
In an interview on Fox News, Bondi had previewed an order by the Justice Department naming DEA head Terry Cole as "emergency police commissioner" of the Metropolitan Police Department, days after President Donald Trump directed the federal government to take control of the local police and deployed the National Guard in an effort to mitigate crime in the nation's capital.
"Effective immediately, Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Terrence C. Cole shall serve as MPD’s Emergency Police Commissioner for the duration of the emergency declared by the President. Commissioner Cole shall assume all of the powers and duties vested in the District of Columbia Chief of Police," the order from the attorney general's office read.
The order means the existing leadership of the D.C. police, including Chief Pamela Smith, will have to receive approval from Cole before issuing any further directives for the department.
Following a meeting with Bondi on Tuesday, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said Smith was serving as "operations lead in working with the federal government and federal forces that will be in the district."
"We are ensuring that our chief of police is the leader and is working with her counterparts that have been named by the president, specifically the director of the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Marshals Service, to ensure that any additional officers that we have, and we expect that could range in the hundreds on any given night, will be deployed in the way that helps us drive down violent crime," Bowser, a Democrat, said Tuesday.
But late Thursday, Bowser and D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb disputed that Bondi could name Cole as "emergency police commissioner."
In a two-page legal opinion Schwalb wrote to Smith, which the mayor posted on X, the D.C. attorney general says he has reviewed Bondi’s order, and it is his opinion that "the Bondi order is unlawful, and that you are not legally obligated to follow it."
Schwalb on Friday filed a lawsuit challenging Trump's federal takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department. The lawsuit challenges both Trump's initial takeover order and Bondi's Thursday order naming Cole as the emergency police commissioner.
Smith issued an order earlier Thursday allowing local police conducting traffic stops to notify Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents about undocumented immigrants they encounter, a move Trump praised as a "great step" in his effort to "stop crime" in the city.
Despite Smith's directive, Bondi cited on Fox News what she framed as "sanctuary policies" in her decision to supplant the police chief for the duration of Trump's 30-day order.
"They're trying to protect criminal aliens. And what's going to happen if we keep this up, criminals are going to flee to D.C., and we're not going to let that happen," Bondi said. "That's why, at my directive, we have made Terry Cole now the commissioner over the police."
