Washington DC Police Chief Stays as DOJ’s Bondi Revises Order

A standoff over the Trump administration’s push to take over law enforcement in the nation’s capital appeared to near a resolution after the Trump administration agreed to let Washington DC’s police chief remain in charge of her department.

Following a legal challenge by Washington officials, US Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a revised order Friday directing the DC mayor to provide the Metropolitan Police Department’s assistance for federal immigration enforcement, including locating, arresting and detaining people unlawfully present in the country, conducting database checks, and responding to federal information requests. The order also calls for the mayor to help enforce laws barring homeless people from occupying public spaces.

At the judge’s urging, Bondi agreed to withdraw her directive putting the head of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, Terrance Cole, in charge of the city’s police department. Instead she tasked Cole with deciding what services the police should provide to help federal authorities. The revision rescinds her Aug. 14 order that gave Cole full control of MPD, a move the judge said exceeded the president’s limited authority under the DC Home Rule Act.

In a statement posted on X, Bondi said her office remains committed to working with Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser to ensure the safety of residents, workers and visitors in the city. But she criticized the city’s Attorney General Brian Schwalb for opposing the order.

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Schwalb and Bowser said during a press conference Friday afternoon that the city’s Police Chief Pamela Smith will remain in her post. The judge overseeing the case hasn’t issued a final ruling.

US District Judge Ana Reyes had directed the government to revise Bondi’s order that sought to strip the Metropolitan Police Department’s chief of her authority and give the DEA chief full powers over the city’s police force. Reyes said the order needed to fully comply with a statute that gives the president limited authority over the police.

Trump had cited a “crime emergency” in exercising rarely-used presidential powers to ramp up the federal presence in Washington’s local affairs, even though recent data — including from the Justice Department — show sharply declining crime rates.

More than 1,750 people, including DC National Guard members, participated in an overnight operation as part of Trump’s executive order, said a White House official. The multi-agency sweep across Washington led to 33 arrests, nearly half of them involving people in the country illegally, the official said.

Read More: Trump Federalizes DC Police, Deploys National Guard to City

Tensions between city and federal officials flared Thursday when Bowser and Schwalb rejected Bondi’s order to strip the Metropolitan Police Department’s chief of her authority and place the agency under federal control.

Bondi criticized the city’s sanctuary policies in her order for shielding criminals who are in the US illegally “from the consequences of federal law.” The DC attorney general’s lawsuit warned that Bondi’s order would upend the command structure of the local police and “sow chaos among the more than 3,100 officers serving the district, endangering the safety of the public and law enforcement officers alike.”

Washington has a unique relationship with the federal government. Congress passed a law in 1973, known as the Home Rule Act, that empowers the city to elect its own leaders and run its own day-to-day affairs. But the district is still subject to congressional oversight, its local judges are nominated by the president and confirmed by the US Senate, and the US attorney’s office handles a large proportion of local prosecutions.

Read More: What Power Does Trump Have to Control Washington, DC?: QuickTake

The home rule law includes a section that allows the president to exercise control over the city’s police force if “special conditions of an emergency nature exist.” The takeover can last as many as 30 days, at which point it can only continue if Congress votes to approve the extension. The president also controls the city’s National Guard reserve force, another dynamic that sets it apart from states.

The statute requires the mayor to provide police officers if requested by the president for help in an emergency. Reyes said the order would track with the statute if it instructed the mayor to offer police officers to help US Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest undocumented immigrants and put Cole in more of a liaison role.

(Updates with Bondi’s revised order from first paragraph. A previous version of the story corrected the spelling of Cole’s first name.)

--With assistance from Kate Sullivan.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Sabrina Willmer in Washington at swillmer2@bloomberg.net;
Myles Miller in New York at mmiller899@bloomberg.net;
Zoe Tillman in Washington at ztillman2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net

Elizabeth Wasserman, Peter Blumberg

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