DOJ backs off attempt to install emergency DC police chief

Ryan Tarinelli, CQ-Roll Call on Aug 15, 2025

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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Friday appeared to back off of its attempt to install a new “emergency” head of the Washington police force after local officials challenged the move in federal court.

The Justice Department identified Terry Cole, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, as the new “emergency police commissioner” in an order on Thursday, stipulating that he would assume “all of the powers and duties” held by the District’s police chief. It also ordered leadership at the Metropolitan Police Department to get Cole’s signoff before issuing any directives.

Local district officials quickly sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. They described the order as a “brazen usurpation of the District’s authority over its own government” and said it “threatens to upend the command structure of MPD and wreak operational havoc within the department.” The litigation also argues that Trump far exceeded his power under a section of the Home Rule Act.

In court on Friday, a Justice Department official said they agreed to rewrite a portion of the order that named Cole as the “emergency police commissioner” of the MPD.

Instead, the new order would say that Cole would serve as the designee of the attorney general for the purposes of requesting service, the department attorney said.

The order from Attorney General Pamela Bondi represented a dramatic escalation in the Trump administration’s push to assert power over the District and came days after Trump declared a public safety emergency, invoking a section of the 1973 Home Rule Act.

Bondi’s order directed enforcement of a local statute related to public disturbances on local lands, and it also directed the MPD to pull back orders the Trump administration criticized as too lenient regarding immigration enforcement, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit argued the order directly interferes with “policies and enforcement related to purely local matters.”

“The entire structure of the statute reflects Congress’s judgment that control over local affairs should be left to the people of the District — not seized by the President based on his disagreements with local law enforcement policy,” the lawsuit said.

Brian Schwalb, the attorney general for the District of Columbia, said the provision of the Home Rule Act, even when invoked, keeps operational control of the local police department with the mayor and police chief.

“By illegally declaring a takeover of MPD, the Administration is abusing its temporary, limited authority under the law,” he said on social media Friday. “This is the gravest threat to Home Rule DC has ever faced, and we are fighting to stop it.”