LOADING ERROR LOADINGWASHINGTON — President Donald Trump declared a “crime emergency” here on Monday, took temporary control of the D.C. police department and said he’d deploy the National Guard. AdvertisementIt’s not uncommon for a president to use emergency powers, including for dubious reasons — Biden used emergency powers supposedly justified by the coronavirus pandemic to try to forgive student debt, for instance — but William Banks, a law professor at Syracuse University, said Trump’s use of emergency powers across his first and second terms exceeds what other modern presidents have done. “It conjures comparisons to authoritarian leaders in other parts of the world and other times in our history.”Democrats and even some libertarian-leaning Republicans have criticized Trump’s use of emergency powers. Data from the Metropolitan Police Department shows violent crime declined 35% in 2024 and fell a further 26% so far this year. “There is no crime emergency in the District of Columbia,” Schwalb wrote in a social media post.
