President Donald J. Trump speaks with military and civic leaders during a flightline tour at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida, May 8, 2019. Leaders met with Trump to provide an update on base recovery efforts.

Legal expert and federal trial attorney Sabrina Haake lambasted President Donald Trump's recent seizure of control over the District’s law enforcement as “glaring unconstitutionality,” arguing that it represents an alarming surge of authoritarian overreach rooted in decades of divisive rhetoric.

In an article published in Salon on Sunday, Haake centered on Trump’s recent declaration of a so‑called "crime emergency" in Washington, D.C., in which he invoked Section 740 of the Home Rule Act of 1973 to commandeer the Metropolitan Police Department and deploy 800 National Guard troops alongside federal law enforcement.

The move, she noted, came despite data showing violent crime in the city is at its lowest point in 30 years.

READ MORE: Trump has relinquished the presidency — and there's only one sane response

She added that the president’s actions are less about public safety and more about "normalizing an expanded police state," using federal force to assert dominance over the city — something she saw as the latest manifestation of a longstanding pattern dating back to his 1989 campaign against the Central Park Five.

Haake warned of dangerous legal and democratic precedents.

She argued that the president’s order effectively placed armed military personnel in a civilian policing role — yet under the Posse Comitatus Act, the use of military troops for domestic law enforcement is strictly limited to insurrection or other statutorily authorized circumstances.

No such conditions were present in this case.

READ MORE: 'Gloom' over Trump economy hits worst levels 'since the Great Recession': report

While Section 740 does permit temporary federal control during emergencies, Haake and other critics argue the invocation here was politically motivated, not based on any legitimate, tangible threat, and thus strains the law’s original intent.

Haake argued that the move is a test-run for future coercive federal takeovers — targeting Democratic‑run cities, sowing division, and undermining local autonomy.

She added that the president’s command that police and military should "do whatever the hell they want" to people on the streets signals an abdication of accountability and a corrosion of civil‑military boundaries.