AG Pam Bondi has crossed a bright line, forcing D.C. to push back against the takeover.
Jay Kuo at The Status Kuo:
Earlier this week, I wrote about the 1973 Home Rule Act that governs Washington, D.C. A provision of that law permits the President to take control of the D.C. police, but 1) only if an emergency requires their use, and, importantly for our discussion today, 2) only for “federal purposes.” What the Act does not permit is a full-scale, top to bottom takeover of the police, including assumption of personnel decisions and policing policy. Yet that is what Attorney General Pam Bondi has attempted to do with an order she issued on Thursday. Today, let’s review Bondi’s order and how it exceeds her legal authority. As I’ll discuss, her move aligns with Donald Trump’s false claim, essentially repeated by “Border Czar” Tom Homan, that there are no real limits to White House authority once an “emergency” has been declared. How fascist of them. We’ll of course also review the city’s response and take a stab at what likely comes next in this escalating feud.
The Bondi Order
There are two pages to the Attorney General’s order on Thursday, but the first is mostly blah blah propaganda about the “scourge of violent crime” in the city. This of course is wholly untrue; D.C. is not among the cities in the U.S. with the highest crime rates. The top honors actually go to three cities in red states, according to the data from the FBI: Memphis, TN; Cleveland, OH and Toledo, OH. In effect, she transformed the federal DEA administrator into the D.C. Police Commissioner, with all the powers of a police chief, and gave him powers to issue any orders to the police force. In short, a total takeover. Bondi also rescinded a number of local orders related to immigration enforcement. Those earlier orders limited what the D.C. police could do with respect to immigration, in line with the city’s general “sanctuary city” status. These included limits on assisting federal officials in the enforcement of any civil immigration laws. [...]
The city’s response
D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb responded hours later last night with an opinion issued to the police chief of D.C., Pamela J. Smith. He stated that he had reviewed Bondi’s order and the applicable sections of the Home Rule Act, and in his view Section 740 of that Act limits the president’s use of the Metropolitan Police Department for “special circumstances of an emergency nature” and “for federal purposes.” It does not, he emphasized, permit the President to remove or replace the Police Chief or alter the chain of command, to rescind or suspend orders, or to “otherwise determine how the District pursues purely local law enforcement.” [...]
The mayor also weighs in
Until this new order dropped, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser had struck a cautious, even cooperative tone, apparently preferring not to challenge the White House’s authority so long as it was within bounds. That all changed last night. Reiterating Schwalb’s argument, Mayor Bowser noted in a post on social media that the city was obligated to provide services of the MPD “for federal purposes” during a “Presidential declared emergency.” She emphasized that they had done that and “followed the law.” [...]
The White House position
Trump officials take a broadly different view of their own powers, asserting essentially that there are no limits to the powers the White House can wield inside D.C. once an emergency state is declared.
The Trump Regime’s lawless takeover of DC finally met its match: DC officials responding to the power grab by filing a suit.
