Leading Democrats on the House’s Judiciary and Oversight committees introduced legislation Friday to terminate President Donald Trump’s federal takeover of the District of Columbia’s police department.
Reps. Jamie Raskin and Robert Garcia — the top Democrats on Judiciary and Oversight, respectively — along with D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen introduced a joint resolution to terminate the “crime emergency” that Trump declared in the District enabling him to use National Guard troops for policing.
The two-page joint resolution says Trump did not identify the conditions necessary to declare an emergency that warrants control of the department, and that even if he had, he would have been limited to directing D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to provide him with the police department’s services. The legislation also cites statistics that the Department of Justice released in early January showing that crime is at a 30-year low in the District.
“No emergency exists in D.C. that the president did not create himself, and he is not using the D.C. Police for federal purposes, as required by law,” Norton said in a statement on Friday.
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In a statement of his own, Raskin said, “The only emergency here is a lawless president experiencing a growing public relations emergency because of his close friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and his stubborn refusal to release the Epstein file despite his promise to do so.”
“Trump has made clear that his efforts in D.C., where 700,000 taxpaying American citizens lack the protections of statehood, are part of a broader plan to militarize and federalize the streets of cities around America whose citizens voted against him,” Raskin continued.
The legislation comes hours after Brian Schwalb, the District’s attorney general, announced Friday morning that he had filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in D.C.’s first big pushback to the police takeover.
Trump said on Wednesday that he may extend the takeover well past the 30 days he’s allowed by law. However, he would need Congress’ approval to keep control of the Metropolitan Police Department longer than a month, though he has already notified congressional committees he plans to extend the takeover past that deadline.
Although the legislation stands hardly any chance of adoption, the joint resolution’s introduction is a signal that Democrats won’t just cede this D.C. crime issue to Trump. Amid all of the conversations going on in politics — rising inflation from tariffs, Russia, Epstein — Trump’s D.C. takeover is politically one of the more advantageous for him and Republicans.
Democrats had looked poised to largely avoid the conversation, but Trump’s continued escalation — first by introducing checkpoints Wednesday night and then by Attorney General Pam Bondi effectively firing the District’s police chief — may have made that position untenable.
Instead, Democrats now appear determined to make Trump’s D.C. takeover about his desire to move on from Epstein.
“Once again, President Trump is making every effort to distract America from Epstein,” Garcia said in a statement. “Republicans aren’t serious about public safety in D.C. If they were, they would not be blocking the city from using $1 billion of its own money, including funding meant to support the city’s law enforcement efforts.”
The joint resolution’s Senate sponsor, Van Hollen, also directed the conversation back to another less popular issue: Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021.
“Trump was AWOL when the District of Columbia actually needed support from the National Guard to protect it from an insurrectionist mob,” Van Hollen said. “His current takeover is an abuse of power and nothing more than a raw power grab.”
Van Hollen added that Trump’s moves were a “direct attack on the ability of the people of the District of Columbia to govern their own affairs.”
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