Amid the federal takeover of our nation’s capital, Attorney General Pam Bondi just appointed the head of the DEA as Emergency D.C. Police Commissioner.
This effectively strips away D.C Police Chief Pamela Smith’s authority and puts it in the (more competent) hands of DEA Administrator Terry Cole.
Take a look:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Bondi names DEA head as DC's 'emergency police commissioner,' granting him powers of police chief amid takeover
— Meg Kinnard (@MegKinnardAP) August 15, 2025
BREAKING: Attorney General Pam Bondi appoints DEA administrator to be 'emergency' D.C. police chief, stripping the local department head of her authority https://t.co/PiYEHH1BQM
— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 15, 2025
Now, the Metropolitan Police Department — including Chief Pamela Smith — must get approval from Commissioner Cole before issuing any directives.
NBC News has more details on what this entails:
In an interview on Fox News, Bondi previewed an order by the Justice Department naming DEA head Terry Cole as “emergency police commissioner” of the Metropolitan Police Department, days after President Donald Trump directed the federal government to take control of the local police and deployed the National Guard in an effort to mitigate crime in the nation’s capital.
“Effective immediately, Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Terrence C. Cole shall serve as MPD’s Emergency Police Commissioner for the duration of the emergency declared by the President. Commissioner Cole shall assume all of the powers and duties vested in the District of Columbia Chief of Police,” the order from the attorney general’s office read.
The order means the existing leadership of the D.C. police, including Chief Pamela Smith, will have to receive approval from Cole before issuing any further directives for the department.
Following a meeting with Bondi on Tuesday, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said Smith was serving as “operations lead in working with the federal government and federal forces that will be in the district.”
“We are ensuring that our chief of police is the leader and is working with her counterparts that have been named by the president, specifically the director of the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Marshals Service, to ensure that any additional officers that we have, and we expect that could range in the hundreds on any given night, will be deployed in the way that helps us drive down violent crime,” Bowser, a Democrat, said Tuesday.
This is a great, very wise move by Pam Bondi.
As you may remember, D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith is a literal DEI hire who formerly served as the department’s Chief Equity Officer before being promoted.
More on that here:
DEI HIRE? D.C. Police Chief Doesn’t Seem to Know What “Chain of Command” Means
Earlier this week, she made headlines for all the wrong reasons when she appeared to have no idea what the term "chain of command" meant.
If you missed that, here's the clip:
I’ve never known of any police chief who doesn’t know what “chain of command” means
Maybe the first piece of cleaning up crime in DC is to reform hiring practices
— Phil Holloway ✈️ (@PhilHollowayEsq) August 12, 2025
Not exactly someone I'd trust to lead a police department...
The MPD is in better hands now.
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