White House officials and attorneys for Washington DC have agreed to scale back the Trump administration’s takeover of the city’s police department.
Under an agreement announced early Friday evening, the US capital city’s Metropolitan police department will remain under the control of its chief, Pamela Smith, instead of Terry Cole, the top administrator for the Drug and Enforcement Administration (DEA), according to reports.
A revised directive Bondi issued late on Friday referred to Cole instead as her “designee” for purposes of directing the DC mayor “to provide such services of the Metropolitan Police Department as the attorney general deems necessary and appropriate”.
Those services, according to Bondi’s two-page order, would include assisting federal immigration enforcement, contrary to DC “sanctuary city” policies constraining metropolitan police department action on immigration.
Friday’s pact would also allow the Trump administration to use Metropolitan police department officers for federal purposes in emergencies.
It comes after Washington DC sought an emergency restraining order on Friday against Donald Trump’s takeover of its police department, dubbing it a “hostile takeover” of law enforcement in the nation’s capital. US district judge Ana C Reyes had signaled that she would issue a temporary restraining order scaling back the Trump White House’s takeover of DC’s metropolitan police if the administration did not alter the arrangement by Friday evening.
Reyes, during oral arguments on Friday, expressed skepticism that the Trump administration has legal authority to run the city’s police force or that Cole could effectively take charge of the department as its chief.
“I still do not understand on what basis the president, through the attorney general, through Mr. Cole, can say: ‘You, police department, can’t do anything unless I say you can,’” Reyes told a justice department lawyer.
The District of Columbia attorney general, Brian Schwalb, filed a lawsuit on Friday morning, hours after the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, late on Thursday issued an order for the federal government to impose a new police chief on the city’s Metropolitan police department (MPD).
Schwalb says the US president and his administration are going beyond legal federal power over the nation’s capital, and he wants a judge to rule that control of the police remains in district hands. The justice department and the White House haven’t commented.
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“By declaring a hostile takeover of MPD, the Administration is abusing its limited, temporary authority under the Home Rule Act,” the lawsuit says.
The Trump administration named Cole as the “emergency police commissioner” over Washington DC – a move that further escalated federal control of the city – but were immediately challenged by local leaders, who then sued.
Federalized national guard troops were ordered into the city four days ago as Donald Trump declared a crisis of crime and homelessness there, amid outrage from opponents.
Bondi put Cole in charge of the capital’s police department, saying he would assume the “powers and duties vested in the District of Columbia Chief of Police”.
She said police department personnel “must receive approval from Commissioner Cole” before issuing any orders. It was not immediately clear where the move left Smith, who works for the city’s mayor, Muriel Bowser.
Bowser promptly hit back, saying late on Thursday in a social media post: “In reference to the US Attorney General’s order, there is no statute that conveys the District’s personnel authority to a federal official.”
Bowser included a letter from Schwalb to Smith opining that Bondi’s order was “unlawful”and that Smith was “not legally obligated to follow it”.
“Members of MPD must continue to follow your orders and not the orders of any official not appointed by the Mayor,” Schwalb wrote in the letter to Smith.
Bondi’s directive came hours after Smith directed MPD officers to share information regarding people not in custody – such as someone involved in a traffic stop or checkpoint – with federal agencies including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).
But, as a so-called sanctuary city, DC police would still be prevented by local law from providing federal immigration agencies with the personal information of an undocumented person in MPD custody, including their release details, location or photos, and cannot arrest people on the basis of their immigration status or let immigration officials question subjects in police custody.
But the justice department said Bondi disagreed with the police chief’s directive because it allowed for continued enforcement of “sanctuary policies”, and the US attorney general said she was rescinding Smith’s order.
The DC power struggle is the latest move by the US president and his administration to test the limits of federal authority, relying on obscure statutes and a subjective declaration of a crisis to bolster a hardline approach to crime and immigration.
Bondi also sent anti-sanctuary-city letters to the mayors of 32 cities and a handful of county executives across the US, warning that she intends to prosecute political leaders who are not in her view sufficiently supportive of immigration enforcement.
Leaders in Democratic-led cities dispute the administration’s characterizations that their cities are overrun with lawlessness, including unhoused people with substance abuse and mental health issues contributing to an increase in homeless and tent encampments.
They say that while Washington has grappled with spikes in violence and visible homelessness, the city’s homicide rate also ranks below those of several other major US cities and the capital is not in the throes of the public safety collapse the administration has portrayed.
Trump earlier praised Smith’s directive to share information with federal agencies.
“That’s a very positive thing. I have heard that just happened,” Trump said of Smith’s order. “That’s a great step. That’s a great step if they’re doing that.”
Bowser, walking a tightrope between the Republican White House and the constituency of her largely Democratic city, was out of town on Thursday for a family commitment in Martha’s Vineyard, fetching her child from summer camp, but would be back on Friday, her office said.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
