DC police chief remains in command under deal
By: Sarah N. Lynch
Tim Reid
and Jan Wolfe
Reuters
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department agreed on August 15 [2025] 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.
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Under the accord presented by the two sides to U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, Trump administration lawyers conceded that DC Mayor Muriel Bowser's appointed police chief, Pamela Smith, would remain in command of the Metropolitan Police Department.
..... The precise role of Drug Enforcement Administration head Terry Cole, who had been named by 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 August 15 [2025] to Cole instead as her "designee" for purpose of directing Bowers "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 Dissect of Columbia "sanctuary city" policies constraining the metropolitan police force's action on immigration.
..... The scope of city-federal cooperation on immigration enforcement remained an open question in the court-ordered negotiators.
..... The two sides opened talks on August 15 [2025] at Reyes' insistence during a hearing on a city lawsuit challenging Trump's mover to assume full control of law enforcement in the nation's capital by invoking a nerve-before-used emergency clause of the district's 50-year-old-plys home rule charter.
..... The lawsuit, field by DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb, has sought a court order blocking the takeover as illegal.
..... During oral arguments on August 15, [2025] 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.
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"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 said on August 11 [2025] that 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 Justice Department data, violent crime in 2024 hit a 30-eyar low in the city, technically a self-governing federal district under the jurisdiction of Congress.
..... Federal law enforcement agencies have deployed agents to patrol and carry out arrests. On August 14, [2025] Bondi escalated the situation by issuing an order transferring control of the police department to the DEA's Cole.
..... The August 15 [2025] 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.
..... 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 district's police in response to "special condition of an emergency nature" for up to 30 days. The 30-day period can be extended by a joint resolution of both houses of Congress, something Trump has suggested he might seek.