AG Bondi installed DEA administrator as DC 'emergency police commissioner' with authority over MPD chief; administration retreated after lawsuit

On August 14, 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a directive designating DEA Administrator Terry Cole as Washington D.C.'s "emergency police commissioner," ordering that the Metropolitan Police Department "must receive approval from Commissioner Cole" before issuing any orders. The move placed a federal drug enforcement official—with no jurisdiction over district civil policing and no appointment authorized by the D.C. Home Rule Act—above the MPD chief as the operational commander of the city's civilian police force.

The directive was a direct escalation of President Trump's Executive Order 14333, signed three days earlier on August 11, which had invoked the Home Rule Act's Section 740 to assert federal control over metropolitan policing. Bondi's Cole appointment went further than the EO itself by installing a named federal official in a command position the D.C. Home Rule Act does not provide for. DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb filed suit the same day, arguing that Bondi had no statutory authority to appoint a police commissioner for the district.

Within 24 hours, the Trump administration retreated. The DOJ revised Cole's title from "emergency police commissioner" to Bondi's "designee," restoring the MPD chief's operational authority. The episode demonstrated both the willingness of the administration to assert extrastatutory federal command over local democratic governance and the limits imposed by immediate legal challenge. No statutory authority was identified to support the original directive.