Trump directs DC Metropolitan Police under § 740 Home Rule Act; National Guard deployed

On 11 August 2025 President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order directing the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department under § 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, Pub. L. 93-198, codified at D.C. Code § 1-207.40, on a determination that “special conditions of an emergency nature exist which require the use of the Metropolitan Police force for Federal purposes.”¹² § 740 permits the President to direct the services of the MPD for up to 30 days; any extension requires a joint resolution enacted by both houses of Congress.² Attorney General Pamela Bondi was designated to exercise the § 740 direction under the President’s order; in coordination with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federalised MPD operated alongside immigration-enforcement actions in the District.³⁴ The deployment included approximately 800 DC National Guard personnel, with subsequent augmentation from the West Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Ohio, Louisiana and Tennessee National Guards reaching a reported total of approximately 2,200 personnel by mid-August 2025.⁵ DC Mayor Muriel Bowser rejected the “crime emergency” predicate, citing falling violent-crime statistics, and the District of Columbia filed District of Columbia v. Trump, No. 1:25-cv-02510 (D.D.C.), challenging the order.⁶⁷

1. § 740 permits the President to direct the MPD for federal purposes for not more than 30 days; § 1-207.40 provides that any extension requires a joint resolution of Congress. The President’s directive does not federalise the MPD as a federal agency: it places the Mayor’s statutory direction over the force temporarily under presidential control for the period and purposes specified.²

2. The District of Columbia National Guard is unique among National Guard forces in reporting to the President as commander-in-chief in peacetime, under 32 U.S.C. § 105 and D.C. Code § 49-409; DC Guard members operating under the President’s command in their militia capacity, and out-of-state Guard members serving in Title 32 funded duty under 32 U.S.C. § 502(f), fall outside the Posse Comitatus Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1385.⁸⁹¹⁰ Federalisation under 10 U.S.C. § 12406 — by contrast — places Guard members in Title 10 active-duty status and triggers the Posse Comitatus bar absent statutory exception.¹¹ Perpich v. Department of Defense, 496 U.S. 334 (1990), upheld broad federal authority over the Guard’s dual-status structure.¹²

3. District of Columbia v. Trump, No. 1:25-cv-02510 (D.D.C., filed 12 August 2025), challenges the order’s § 740 predicate and the extended scope of federal direction.⁷ The 7 June 2025 California National Guard federalisation under 10 U.S.C. § 12406(2)-(3) is the immediate antecedent in the second-Trump-term arc of federal direction of state-controlled domestic forces; California v. Trump, No. 3:25-cv-04870 (N.D. Cal.), and Newsom v. Trump, No. 25-3727 (9th Cir.), remain pending.¹³