Washington, D.C., Police Chief Pamela Smith pushed back Friday morning on Attorney General Pam Bondi’s move to install the Drug Enforcement Agency chief at the head of the district’s police, warning that the directive could upend the department’s operations.
District officials are suing the Trump administration to block the action, arguing it goes beyond the emergency authorities in the D.C. Home Rule Act that President Trump invoked to surge law enforcement resources in the city.
On Thursday night, Bondi installed DEA administrator Terrance Cole as D.C.’s “emergency police commissioner,” assuming Smith’s duties as part of Trump’s takeover of the district’s police.
“If effectuated, the Bondi Order would upend the command structure of MPD, endangering the safety of the public and law enforcement officers alike,” Smith wrote Friday morning in a court filing accompanying the district’s lawsuit. “In my nearly three decades in law enforcement, I have never seen a single government action that would cause a greater threat to law and order than this dangerous directive.”
Smith said that Bondi’s directive would only “create confusion” for officers.
“Imposing a new command structure ‘effective immediately’ will wreak operational havoc within MPD and create tremendous risk for the public,” she wrote. “The new command structure will create confusion for MPD personnel, who are required under District law to respect and obey the Chief of Police as the head and chief of the police force.
“There is no greater risk to public safety in a paramilitary organization than to not know who is in command,” she added.
Trump’s police takeover is in effect for 30 days. His administration has said it will seek congressional approval to extend past that window.
