ACLU-D.C. Response to Attorney General’s Challenge to Trump’s Takeover of D.C. Police

WASHINGTON — The ACLU of the District of Columbia issued the following statement in response to the lawsuit filed today by D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb challenging President Trump’s takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department. The following can be attributed to Monica Hopkins, Executive Director at the ACLU-D.C.:
“President Trump’s takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department is a brazen abuse of power that flies in the face of the powers granted D.C. Home Rule Act and the democratic principles it represents. The law allows the president, in emergencies, to use the ‘services’ of D.C.’s police for federal purposes — not to take over all local law enforcement functions, handpick a federal chief, rewrite local policies, or strip the District’s residents of control over their own law enforcement. It’s like borrowing the keys to your house for the weekend — then moving in and knocking down the walls.

We applaud D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb for defending the District against this abuse of power. The president’s actions are about consolidating power and creating fear in the nation’s capital. The president’s own words — promising to let police ‘do whatever the hell they want’ — raise grave concerns about civil rights abuses, particularly for Black, Brown, and unhoused residents.

Let’s be clear: no matter what authority they claim, military troops, federal agencies, and local police cannot violate the Constitution or the D.C. Home Rule Act. The ACLU-D.C. will continue to monitor the use of D.C. police to ensure that the constitutional rights of our community are protected. Along with continuing the fight for statehood so that D.C. residents are treated like those in every other state and have the same guardrails against federal overreach.”