President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is considering a possible takeover of public safety in D.C., potentially installing—with congressional approval—some type of federally appointed czar over law enforcement in the nation’s capital, according to two sources.

The sources emphasized no firm decisions have been made. “A lot of things are being considered,” said one involved source familiar with the presidential transition team’s discussions at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach. 

Two separate sources suggested that a U.S. deputy attorney general or similar official could possibly be appointed to directly oversee the District’s police force, fire and emergency services, the 911 call center, and possibly even juvenile justice work that is now done by the locally elected Attorney General Brian Schwalb. D.C. Republican Party chair Patrick Mara previously speculated about the potential for federal control of the Metropolitan Police Department.

Such a takeover of public safety would be a more targeted action than what happened in the late 1990s, when Congress created the federal Financial Control Board to run the entire District government, which at the time was nearly bankrupt.

Several District officials and business leaders are discouraging any public discussion of what Trump might do, fearing it might “poke the bear” and make matters worse with the incoming president. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

The potential intrusion into local governing could come even though Bowser and the D.C. Council are making a determined public effort in the halls of Congress and elsewhere to highlight sharp drops in violent crime this year compared to recent years. 

At a year-end briefing on crime in early December, Bowser revealed she had personally spoken with transition officials. “Yes, I’ve talked to them about public safety … and I specifically talked about … how we have been very focused on driving down crime,” she said.

The D.C. Council also recently has pulled back from several of its more progressive crime policies—toughening pretrial detention and expanding DNA testing of suspects charged with crimes, and creating aggressive policing in targeted “drug free zones,” which officials have credited with reduced crime in hot spots around the District.

The Council also has eased restrictions on police officers’ ability to physically detain suspects while maintaining a ban on “chokeholds” in place since 1982. Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto, who chairs the Council’s public safety committee, wrote in her year-end report that “the District is ending the year with the lowest amount of violent crime we have seen in over 20 years. The ongoing work to keep DC residents and visitors safe continues.”

And the Council recently voted to expel Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White, who is facing criminal bribery charges in federal court. Ahead of the vote, councilmembers spoke publicly about the importance of upholding the body’s ethics. Some members also privately worry that their failure to take strong action would invite interference from Congress during this heightened moment for the city. White was re-elected in November and is set to be sworn in Jan. 2. The Council is expected to take a final vote to expel him in February.

At minimum, Trump is expected to nominate a new and more aggressive U.S. Attorney for the District to replace Matthew Graves, who was chosen by President Joe Biden in 2021. Graves has served three years as the District’s chief prosecutor amid criticism that his prosecutions haven’t matched the level of crime in the District.

Short of a full takeover of public safety, Trump’s transition team is considering revising or rescinding some of the District’s most progressive criminal justice laws. The Republican-controlled Congress could direct Bowser and the Council to hire more police and public safety workers.

The Metropolitan Police Department has about 600 fewer officers than in previous years. Bowser has pressed the 13-member Council to do more to help bring the force to about 4,000 officers. But a recent audit by D.C. Auditor Kathy Patterson concluded better deployment of the current force and hiring more civilian staff would be more effective than hiring more sworn officers. 

The still-private transition discussions belie the hopes of some local leaders that Trump would be too busy with national and international issues to focus on local D.C. “He’s going to do something,” the source familiar with Mar-a-Lago discussions says about the District. Trump has made criticism of crime in the District a constant theme for many years, irrespective of whether crime rates are up or down.

At a July rally at his Doral golf club in Florida, Trump declared: “We will take over the horribly run capital of our nation in Washington, D.C. and clean it up, renovate it, and rebuild our capital city so that it is no longer a nightmare of murder and crime, but rather it will become the most beautiful capital anywhere in the world.”

In August at a campaign stop in York, Pennsylvania, Trump vowed to make the District “safe” again. “You want to be able to go there and you want to be able to enjoy it, and you don’t want to be mugged or shot or killed in our capital, which has become very unsafe,” Trump said. “It’s horribly run, graffiti stained, and we’re going to fix it very quickly and beautifully.”

District officials gamely dispute Trump’s filth and crime-ridden declarations. And they note that he generally has trashed urban areas from New York to San Francisco with their more liberal and Black and brown populations. But only in the nation’s capital does federal law give Trump and Congress the upper hand to interfere with or override District laws and operations.

The District’s limited Home Rule Act, passed by Congress in 1973, includes a provision that allows any president to take over the District’s police department for 48 hours by declaring an emergency, and longer if Congress approves.

Local officials say they believe that the next Congress, with Republicans in control of both chambers, would likely support Trump if he made such a move. Trump also is empowered to call out the District’s National Guard to patrol streets even though the policing powers of the Guard are limited. 

The Constitution empowered Congress to establish a federal capital district where it would “exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever.” Even lawyers for the District recognize the broad power of that provision as long as Congress’ actions do not violate human rights or other federal laws. “We have no real cards to play,” says one District official.

Walter Smith, a respected local lawyer and a former D.C. deputy attorney general who supports statehood for the District, contended in the Washington Post in November that the Constitution’s “exclusive legislation” provision does not mean Congress has wholesale power to simply “take over” the government. Others dispute that view and note the continuing enmity with which some members of Congress attack the District. 

In July, Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah introduced a bill that would abolish the District’s entire Home Rule government. Lee pointedly named the bill the “Bringing Oversight to Washington and Safety to Every Resident Act,” or the “BOWSER Act.” 

Some District officials have pointed out that Bowser has developed a good working relationship with Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, who as chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability oversees the District. Comer has praised Bowser’s focus on public safety and other issues and was a key player in the District’s recent win in Congress to get control of the federal RFK Stadium land—a positive sign for the District. 

But given the drumbeat of Trump’s outrage over crime, local leaders privately say it’s still more likely that the Trump transition will take action against local D.C. rather than decide to do nothing.

Tom Sherwood is a contributing writer for City Paper and the resident political analyst for WAMU’s Politics Hour with Kojo Nnamdi.

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