Trump’s D.C. Police Takeover and National Guard Deployment: What to Know

President Trump made a show of force in Washington, D.C., this week, exercising his unique powers over the nation’s capital to commandeer the city’s police force, deploy the National Guard and send hundreds of federal law enforcement agents into the city in what he described as an effort to combat crime.

It is the first time a president has used a declared emergency to wrest control of the city’s police, a step that its mayor said was “unsettling” though allowed under the law. Congress and the executive branch have long exerted controls over the city’s budget and other decisions. But the president’s move may represent the biggest encroachment on the city’s autonomy since it was granted home rule 52 years ago.

While crime is a concern for many residents, the situation on the ground differs from Mr. Trump’s hyperbolic statements in justifying the moves: Official data shows that crime is falling — particularly violent crime, which hit a 30-year low last year — after surging during the pandemic.

Mr. Trump, who has stoked fears of violent crimes in America’s cities going back more than 35 years, delivered increasingly dire threats after returning to office in January that if he was not satisfied with the city’s efforts to combat crime, he would order a federal takeover of Washington — in effect dissolving the local government to rule it directly.

Mr. Trump took his first firm steps in that direction last week, after a prominent young administration official was beaten by a mob of young assailants in an attempted carjacking in Washington.

Here’s what to know.

What is Trump doing on law enforcement in Washington? And how is he able to do it?

In the span of a week, Mr. Trump rapidly ratcheted up moves going over the heads of D.C. leaders. He has invoked his authority in overseeing federal law enforcement and a 1973 law that gives the president the power to take temporary control of the city’s police.

He ordered a surge of roughly 500 federal agents into the city beginning last Friday, after the beating of Edward Coristine — an operative of the Department of Government Efficiency — that week.

Then on Monday, Mr. Trump used a provision of the D.C. Home Rule Act, the law that established a local government and granted the city limited autonomy, to temporarily take over the Metropolitan Police Department, the city’s main police force.

A White House official said the current takeover would last 30 days, the maximum outlined in the law before the president must seek an extension of that authority through Congress. Mr. Trump has expressed interest in seeking such an extension.

What powers do federal agents have on city patrols?

On Tuesday, National Guard troops began to deploy in Washington for the first time since 2020, when Mr. Trump ordered a crackdown on Black Lives Matter protests in the city. Unlike the 50 states, D.C. does not control its National Guard unit and has little ability to push back against a federal deployment, as Gov. Gavin Newsom of California did earlier this year.

About a dozen troops were spotted on the National Mall on Tuesday as others gathered at the D.C. Armory, the headquarters of the D.C. National Guard. The initial deployment near the Washington Monument was a far cry from the aggressive policing carried out by the D.C. Guard in 2020. The troops were seen snapping photos of themselves with visitors, and left roughly two hours after they arrived.

One complicating factor of using federal agents to patrol Washington is that those agents do not have the same authority as police officers to arrest people for minor criminal offenses.

Trump administration officials have suggested that if federal agents see someone commit such a crime, they can stop and detain the person until a local police officer arrives and makes an arrest. City officials have said the National Guard troops would not have the authority to make arrests, as the use of the military for civilian law enforcement is limited by the Constitution.

Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington said this week that the president “has the authority, by virtue of the statute, to request services.” But she said city officials retained the authority to hire and fire people in the Police Department. She added that the police chief would work “hand in hand with the people that the president has designated.”

Could Trump fully take over D.C.?

Even before the current crisis, Mr. Trump held a significant amount of control over D.C. The president nominates the city’s judges and top prosecutor. Much of the City Council’s powers to make laws and plan the annual budget is also subject to congressional oversight.

Mr. Trump in effect exercised his presidential powers to set aside some of the city’s autonomy, declaring a public safety emergency and temporarily commandeering the city’s police force.

In theory, Mr. Trump could go further, with the approval of the Republican-controlled Congress. Lawmakers could extend the emergency, keeping the police under Mr. Trump’s authority for the duration.

Mr. Trump may also be able to keep the National Guard and other federal agents deployed in the city indefinitely. In California, a fraction of the Guard force that Mr. Trump had federalized is still operating under federal control months after being called up.

He could also direct federal units to more forcefully police the city, using tear gas, riot gear, armored vehicles, low-flying aircraft and other aggressive tools and tactics. The White House had previously said that federal agents in the city would be “identified, in marked units, and highly visible,” but those restrictions are not mandated by law, and those units could quickly shift to crack down on city residents.

The most extreme — and most unlikely — outcome is that Mr. Trump calls on Congress to repeal the D.C. Home Rule Act. That would dissolve the local government and place the city directly under federal control. The city’s 700,000 residents — more than the population of Vermont or Wyoming — would lose the ability to elect their mayor and local council members.

Mr. Trump has in recent months expressed support for a federal takeover, and Republicans in both the House and the Senate have introduced legislation to do so. But the chances of those laws passing are still very low. Under current Senate rules, such a law would need 60 votes to advance, and there are only 53 Republicans in the Senate.

Has something like this happened before?

Mr. Trump is the first president to use a declared emergency to wrest control of D.C.’s police. But federal police and the military have previously been deployed in the city, most recently during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.

Mr. Trump had also deployed the National Guard to Washington in 2020 as part of a crackdown on racial justice protests after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

The D.C. Guard was at the forefront of that deployment, which was widely seen as a debacle at the time. Mr. Trump had also considered a deployment of active-duty military units like the 82nd Airborne, and senior Army leaders warned National Guard officers that Army units would replace them on the ground if they were insufficiently aggressive in controlling the protests.

There have been other encroachments on the city’s autonomy during home rule. Before this week, the most significant was a financial control board, established by Congress in 1995 to steer the city out of a fiscal crisis.