• US Attorney General Pam Bondi issues order requiring Washington, DC’s mayor and police department to recognize Terry Cole as 'emergency police commissioner' and grant him full authority
• DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and Brian Schwalb, district’s attorney general, indicate they would resist directive

ISTANBUL 

Local officials in the US capital quickly pushed back at a federal order naming an “emergency” police chief and granting him full authority over the Washington police, escalating the conflict between city officials and President Donald Trump’s attempted federal takeover.

Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, issued the Thursday order requiring Washington, DC’s mayor and its police department to recognize Terry Cole, head of the Drug Enforcement Agency, as the city’s “emergency police commissioner” and grant him full authority over the police force during the federal government’s controversial takeover.

The move was swiftly criticized by Muriel Bowser, the capital’s mayor, and Brian Schwalb, its attorney general, who said they would resist the directive, according to CNN.

Bondi’s order also marked the official start of federal control over DC police and directed city officials to end the district’s sanctuary city policies.

Sanctuary city policies limit cooperation between a city’s police or other government agencies and federal immigration authorities.

“There is no statute that conveys the District’s personnel authority to a federal official," Bowser objected, in one of the first major acts of resistance to Trump’s takeover of the DC police.

"Let us be clear about what the law requires during a Presidential-declared emergency: it requires the mayor of Washington, DC, to provide the services of the Metropolitan Police Department for federal purposes at the request of the President," Bowser added.

"We have followed the law."

Schwalb wrote in a letter to DC Police Chief Pamela Smith: “It is my opinion that the Bondi order is unlawful and that you are not legally obligated to follow it.”

Schwalb’s argument is that the Home Rule Act does not grant Trump the authority to dismiss or replace the police chief, nor to change the Metropolitan Police Department’s chain of command.