New Capitol Police chief faces DC takeover, member security

WASHINGTON — Michael Sullivan was just settling into his role as chief of the Capitol Police when President Donald Trump shined a bright light on law enforcement in the nation’s capital.

Trump’s move to exert emergency powers over local police and deploy the National Guard has been felt throughout the District, as Sullivan can attest.

“I was out for a run this morning and saw the National Guard on the Mall. That feels different to the city,” he said in an interview Thursday reflecting on his first six weeks on the job.

But the mission remains the same for the Capitol Police, Sullivan said: Keeping members of Congress safe, along with the thousands of visitors who come to Capitol Hill each day.

“We have been really coordinating with this effort,” Sullivan said of Trump’s surge, adding that working with federal partners, as well as Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith, is an everyday occurrence for the force and not a major departure from the norm.

“We’ll continue to talk to Chief Smith because at the end of the day, whenever this wraps up … it’s us, Park Police, Amtrak, that consistently work here and work here every day,” he said.

Navigating through this tense moment for local-federal relations is the first high-profile challenge of Sullivan’s tenure, but it likely won’t be the last.

He inherits a department that has dealt with low staffing levels and flagging morale, a heightened threat environment and a string of recent security lapses.

One goal in the near term is to continue the work begun by his predecessor, J. Thomas Manger, who before his retirement in May led a push to hire more officers and close out more than 100 inspector general recommendations issued in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack.

“I’m walking in and a lot of work has been done. What I’m focused on now is making sure that we have processes in place to ensure durable change going forward, that all of these recommendations that have been implemented … outlast all of us,” Sullivan said.

“We can’t have any regression.”

“Mike has a very good reputation. Well regarded in the profession,” Manger said in an emailed statement. “I’m confident that he will build on the work that has been done over the past four years.”

Sullivan was sworn in as chief on June 30 and brings with him decades of law enforcement experience. He cut his teeth in Louisville, joining the department in 1995 and rising through the ranks to become deputy chief in 2016.

He did a stint as deputy commissioner in Baltimore, then, in 2022, became interim chief in Phoenix. At the time the department was under investigation by the Department of Justice for excessive force, discriminatory practices and other “systemic problems,” according to federal investigators. Sullivan worked to increase transparency within the department and helped overhaul the department’s use-of-force policies.

“I’ve never shied away from challenges. I left Louisville, Kentucky, and went to Baltimore City. And from there I went to Phoenix, which was under a ‘pattern or practice’ investigation,” Sullivan said. “I look for opportunities that are challenges, and a chance to serve something bigger than yourself.”

‘Coverage throughout the whole country’

Sullivan, an Indiana native who received his undergraduate degree in police administration and a master’s in the administration of justice from the University of Louisville, won the top job with the Capitol Police over a competitive group of other candidates, including former Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles, Politico reported in June.

The department’s interim head Sean Gallagher was also in the mix, but faced strong backlash from the union representing Capitol Police officers. In a statement issued the day before Sullivan was named the new chief, the union said Gallagher failed to meet the “standard of trust and integrity required to lead the U.S. Capitol Police,” in part citing his position in leadership during the Jan. 6 attack.

In its announcement of Sullivan, the Capitol Police Board said in a statement it was confident in his “experience, leadership, and approach in protecting the Congress as an institution to ensure the legislative process is unimpeded.”

Protecting Congress and its members is top among the challenges Sullivan will need to confront, both on the Capitol campus and when they are in their home districts.

Member safety is the number one issue he said he heard expressed in his early meetings with lawmakers.

The concerns aren’t new.

The Jan. 6, 2021, attack raised major red flags about Capitol security, and the number of threats publicly reported by the department rose during Trump’s first term in office and has remained elevated.

In 2024, the department reported 9,474 concerning statements and direct threats against members, their family and staff, up from 8,008 the year prior. (Manger testified earlier this year that the number of credible threats was in the hundreds, though the department has not publicly released that information. Asked whether the department might publish the number of credible threats going forward, Sullivan said “It’s not something I’m opposed to looking at.”).

Anxiety over member safety only increased in June, when the former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed in a targeted political attack.

“We all know that the threat environment that we’re facing, the members are facing right now, has gone up significantly over the last number of years, and it seems to be going at that same trajectory going forward,” Sullivan said.

During Manger’s tenure, the department struck more mutual aid agreements with local departments throughout the country while also establishing a physical presence in some parts of the country where threats levels were particularly high. Field offices were set up in two states – California and Florida – featuring a small group of agents whose mission is to investigate threat cases.

Manger envisioned an expansion of that network of agents in the field, but the idea has drawn congressional pushback.

“While offices were set up in strategic locations several years ago as a pilot program, upon review by the Capitol Police Board there has been insufficient return on investment for this program,” House appropriators wrote in fiscal 2026 Legislative Branch appropriations bill report. “At the advice of the Board, the recommendation does not include funding for continuation of this program.”

Sullivan said he sees value in having agents embedded throughout the country, but is evaluating the program going forward. In the short term, he’s focused department resources on expanding mutual aid agreements.

“I’ve got terrific relationships because I’ve been all over the country,” Sullivan said. “We’ve been able to leverage those partnerships during this break, but we really want to amp that up so we can have really good coverage throughout the whole country.”

Staffing will also be key, and was a top priority for Manger, as well as for many rank-and-file officers, though there was at times disagreement on where additional resources should be directed.

In one of his last hearings as chief, Manger told Senate appropriators in May that one of his top priorities was staffing up on the dignitary protection team, a statement union head Gus Papathanasiou took issue with.

“I truly hope that Chief Sullivan doesn’t have the same mentality and sees that the uniformed officers are the heart and soul of the USCP and that the new chief will work with the union to improve officer morale and fix the issues within the agency that has plagued us for years,” Papathanasiou said Friday.

Sullivan did mention the need for more dignitary protection personnel and for more agents to investigate threats. But he also expressed interest in investing more in training and creating a better work culture for front-line officers. Retention of officers, he said, was just as important as attracting new officers to the force.

“You want to make sure you hire the best, but you also want to make sure you retain folks,” Sullivan said. “[When] people leave places, in my experience, it’s for that first-level supervision, that working environment that they come to every single day. It’s incumbent on us to develop leaders, especially at that line level where it touches people every single day.”