Trump’s Takeover of Washington D.C. Police Force Unleashes New Legal and Constitutional Concerns

August 12, 2025

To justify his deployment of the National Guard to the streets of Washington, D.C., in conjunction with FBI, Border Patrol, ICE, and DEA agents, as well as Secret Service personnel, as part of his federal takeover of the city’s police force, President Donald Trump has declared a “crime emergency” in the nation’s capital, despite the fact that federal officials in his own administration recently announced that violent crime in the District of Columbia has hit a 30-year low. In a press conference on Monday, Trump announced that these forces “can do whatever the hell they want” to curb crime, an unprecedented presidential action, and another assertion of his belief that he enjoys absolute power under Article II of the Constitution.

Trump has invoked a provision of the 1973 Washington D.C. Home Rule Act, which permits the president to take control of the city’s police force for a temporary period, up to 30 days. After that period, Trump must receive authorization from Congress if he wishes to maintain control of law enforcement. Trump’s false pretext for deploying the guardsmen, one exposed by his administration’s report that violent crime in the nation’s capital is down 35 percent from 2023, and has fallen to its lowest point since before the pandemic, is the latest in a string of troop deployments for domestic purposes. It comes just two months after he sent 4,000 national guardsmen and 800 active-duty Marines to quell protests in Los Angeles over his immigration policies, despite the fact that the protests, which were overwhelmingly peaceful and efficiently handled by local law enforcement, had largely ended. Trump’s actions violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which sharply limits use of the military in domestic law enforcement, as well as the 10th Amendment, and are the subject of a federal trial underway this week.

Trump’s executive takeover of law enforcement in the nation’s capital – long a goal of his – is predicated on his baseless description of the city as an urban hellscape and reflects his authoritarian trajectory. Devoid of a factually based rationale, since there is no street crime epidemic in the District, the legality of Trump’s action is specious and raises questions about his motives. Historically, autocrats have painted wildly exaggerated portraits of violent crime in cities before taking control of local law enforcement, pursuant to national expansion.

Indeed, Trump announced that he may also deploy the National Guard to other cities, naming New York, Chicago, Baltimore, and Oakland, among others. Each city is governed by a Democratic mayor and located within a “Blue State.” FBI statistics indicate that crime is down, for example, in New York and Baltimore, and the National Mayors Association has confirmed the reduction of crimes in cities across America. Historically speaking, authoritarian leaders have deployed the military into civilian populations as projections of power and presence, aiming to intimidate local populations and suppress dissent. The infliction of fear among the people has been a common technique among autocrats in other nations and across the decades, as a means of cowing opponents, silencing dissidents and preventing protests. Residents of Washington have already expressed fear at the sight of military boots on the ground in their streets.

While it is likely that the deployment of forces in the nation’s capital also represents an additional effort to divert the attention of Trump’s MAGA base, outraged by the president’s failure to deliver on his promise to release the Epstein Files – a political and moral scandal that has engulfed his administration’s time, resources, and energies, and which seemingly defies resolution – the broader legal and constitutional concerns arising across our nation ask about state authority, in the event of forthcoming deployments, to respond to presidential acts that swallow up the 10th Amendment. Mindful of the fact that all governmental acts, including those of presidents, must be tethered to the Constitution, citizens are right to ask about measures to restrain the federal government and prevent, as Chief Justice Marshall wrote, transgression of legal boundaries.

As is often the case, history offers valuable insights for our time. In 1798, when Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts founders, including James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, wrote resolutions – the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions – that decried violations of the Constitution which they believed constituted a fundamental threat to the republic, federalism, and American liberties. We turn next week to their response.

-David Adler