President Donald Trump announced Monday that he is federalizing the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department to address a “public safety emergency,” a move that will give him complete law enforcement control over the district.

"With crime trends going down in recent years, I'm not sure there is that emergency," ArentFox Schiff partner David Grosso said of President Donald Trump's executive order seizing control of the District of Columbia's police force under a declared crime emergency.

Trump has the authority to temporarily take control of the local police. For the president to mount a full federal takeover of the city, however, Congress would first need to repeal the 1973 Home Rule Act, which granted D.C. a level of self-governance.