D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb said Tuesday that his office’s first instinct isn’t to a file a lawsuit in response to President Donald Trump’s federal takeover of the city’s police department, instead emphasizing it is watching to see who is running day-to-day operations at the local agency.

Schwalb said violent crime has been going down in D.C. since he was elected in 2023 and that Trump’s comments about crime in the city are “not consistent with the facts on the ground here.”

Schwalb’s comments come as city leaders grapple with how to respond to the administration’s decision to invoke the Home Rule Act.

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