Civil Discourse – When The President Becomes The Police – Joyce Vance

By Joyce Vance, Aug 11, 2025

The Posse Comitatus Act reserves the police power to the states, prohibiting the federal government from using the military for domestic law enforcement absent truly compelling circumstances. This principle can be extended to the National Guard when a president federalizes a state’s troops. That’s the very issue that Judge Charles Breyer is considering in Newsom v. Trump this week: whether Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles crossed the line into domestic law enforcement.

But when Donald Trump declared a public safety emergency in Washington, D.C. this morning, taking control of the Metropolitan Police and announcing his intent to bring the National Guard in to help, the rules that apply everywhere else were not in play. The situation in Washington is unique, and it’s important for us to understand what it is and what it isn’t.

It’s deeply concerning that Trump’s predication for seizing control in the District—allegedly out of control crime—are a lie. I shared the statistics with you last night, which show that crime is actually decreasing in the District of Columbia. But because the D.C. Home Rule Act allows the president to take control of the Metropolitan Police Department for 30 days in an emergency, and because the law doesn’t carefully define what qualifies as an emergency, Trump will likely get his 30 days. That conclusion was reinforced during D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s press conference, where she called Trump’s federal takeover of the D.C. police department “unsettling and unprecedented,” but did not threaten to sue. City officials have likely looked at the law and concluded Trump has enough room under the vague rule to get away with using false pretenses to take over the police.

Time and again, Trump shows his willingness to grab and abuse power, and each instance makes the next more likely. But if he wants to seize control of law enforcement in other cities, he will have to use different legal authorities, such as the Insurrection Act, which, so far, has apparently been too politically fraught. Existing rules made it easier for Trump to act in Washington than in other cities, and this playbook cannot be readily duplicated elsewhere. In other words, as bad as this is, there’s a silver lining.

Here’s the legal landscape that permits Trump to control the police and the Guard:

Police: § 1-207.40 of the Code of the District of Columbia allows a president to take control of the Metropolitan Police Force for federal purposes in an emergency. To keep control for more than 48 hours, he must notify the chair and the ranking member of the Committees on the District of Columbia in Congress. Trump has already done this. That means he can hold onto control for 30 days, but no longer, unless Congress authorizes it. If you tuned into

Steve Vladeck’s and my Substack Live conversation tonight, you know that we both believe congressional Democrats could filibuster to prevent that from happening.

So why do it if it’s only for 30 days? Perhaps Trump is indeed looking to push the boundaries of presidential power even further than he has before. Or perhaps he’s hoping 30 days will be enough to distract the public from his Jeffrey Epstein problem. Either way, Attorney General Pam Bondi is running the police for 30 days, and we’ll be watching.

D.C. National Guard: Unlike state national guards, the D.C. Guard falls under the president’s purview, so he has no need to federalize it like he did in California to deploy troops for federal purposes. DOJ has historically taken the position that the D.C. National Guard’s unique status means it is “non-federal,” and is not subject to the Posse Comitatus Act, which leaves Trump free to use it for direct law enforcement purposes inside of the city. The Guard in D.C. is relatively small compared to state forces. In California, Trump ultimately federalized about 4,000 troops. In all of D.C., there are fewer than 2500 soldiers and airmen in total.

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