D.C. police chief remains in command under deal with Trump administration

By Sarah N. Lynch, Tim Reid and Jan Wolfe

WASHINGTON, Aug 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department agreed on Friday to scale back President Donald Trump's unprecedented attempted takeover of the District of Columbia's police force, in a deal negotiated with city officials at the urging of a federal judge.

Under the accord presented by the two sides to U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, Trump administration lawyers conceded that D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser's appointed police chief, Pamela Smith, would remain in command of the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department.

The precise role of Drug Enforcement Administration head Terry Cole, who had been named by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi as the city's "emergency police commissioner" under Trump's takeover bid, was still to be hashed out in further talks.

A revised directive Bondi issued late on Friday referred to Cole instead as her "designee" for purposes of directing the D.C. 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 D.C. "sanctuary city" policies constraining metropolitan police department action on immigration.

The scope of city-federal cooperation on immigration enforcement remained an open question in the court-ordered negotiations.

The two sides opened talks on Friday afternoon at Reyes' insistence during a hearing on a city lawsuit challenging Trump's move to assume full control of D.C. law enforcement by invoking a never-before-used emergency clause of the district's 50-year-old-plus home rule charter.

The lawsuit, filed by D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb, had sought a court order blocking the takeover as illegal.

During oral arguments on Friday, Reyes 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.

TRUMP DECLARES CRIME 'EMERGENCY'

Trump said on Monday he was deploying hundreds of National Guard troops to Washington and temporarily taking over the city's police department to curb what he depicted as a crime emergency in the U.S. capital.

According to U.S. Justice Department data, violent crime in 2024 hit a 30-year low in the city, technically a self-governing federal district under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress.

Federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the DEA, have deployed agents to patrol the streets and carry out arrests. On Thursday, Bondi escalated the situation by issuing an order transferring control of the police department from the city to the DEA's Cole.

Trump, who has suggested he could take similar actions in other Democratic-controlled cities, has sought to expand the presidency in his second term, inserting himself into the affairs of major banks, law firms and elite universities.

Friday's lawsuit, which names Trump, Bondi, Cole, and others as defendants, intensified a growing battle over the city between Bondi and Bowser, who have emerged as the public faces of the power struggle.

Bondi's order had stipulated that the city must receive approval from Cole before it can issue any directives to the roughly 3,500-member police force. It also sought to rescind several of the police department's prior directives, including one addressing its involvement with immigration enforcement.

Schwalb wrote in a social media post on Friday, "This is the gravest threat to Home Rule DC has ever faced, and we are fighting to stop it."

The 1973 D.C. Home Rule Act is a federal law that established local self-governance for the district.

It includes a provision giving the U.S. president authority to control the D.C. police in response to "special conditions of an emergency nature" for up to 30 days. The 30-day period can be extended by a joint resolution of both chambers of the U.S. Congress, something Trump has suggested he might seek.

Some legal experts said Trump exceeded his authority, arguing the text of Home Rule Act does not authorize a complete presidential takeover of the police force.

One challenge for D.C.'s attorney general might be that the U.S. Supreme Court has in some cases endorsed broad assertions of presidential authority.

"Historically, courts have been very deferential, for better or worse, to presidential declarations of emergency," said Jill Hasday, a University of Minnesota law professor.