Federal Bureau of Investigation and Metropolitan Police Department officers conduct a traffic stop near the U.S. Capitol on Aug. 14, 2025 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice will rewrite an order from Attorney General Pam Bondi that initially placed a Trump administration official in charge of the District of Columbia’s police force, after an emergency hearing late Friday afternoon on a lawsuit filed by the district.

Attorneys on behalf of the Justice Department told District of Columbia Judge Ana C. Reyes they would rewrite Section 1 of Bondi’s order by a deadline the judge set of 6:30 p.m. Eastern Friday.

In that section, Bondi’s late Thursday order named Terry Cole, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, as head of the Metropolitan Police Department.

District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb called that move a “brazen usurpation of the district’s authority” in his suit filed early Friday against the Trump administration.

Reyes, who was nominated by former President Joe Biden, said if she did not receive the new order by the deadline, she would issue a temporary restraining order against the DOJ. She said she found that section of Bondi’s order “plainly contrary to statute” of the district’s Home Rule Act of 1973.

The exact changes to the order were not immediately available.

District filed suit Friday

Schwalb early Friday sued the Trump administration for taking control of the Metropolitan Police Department’s 3,400 officers.

The suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia argued that President Donald Trump’s Monday executive order to federalize the district’s police force “far exceeded” the president’s authority under the Home Rule Act of 1973 that allows Washingtonians to elect their local leaders, but gives Congress control over local laws and the district’s budget.

Trump has warned he may pursue similar action in other Democratic-led cities that he sees as having “totally out of control” crime, though experts have questioned the legality and mayors already have raised objections.

“This is the gravest threat to Home Rule DC has ever faced, and we are fighting to stop it,” Schwalb, a Democrat elected in 2022, wrote on social media. “The Administration’s actions are brazenly unlawful. They go well beyond the bounds of the President’s limited authority and instead seek a hostile takeover of MPD.”

District Mayor Muriel Bowser pushed back on Bondi’s order, and wrote on social media that “there is no statute that conveys the District’s personnel authority to a federal official.”

“Let us be clear about what the law requires during a Presidential declared emergency: it requires the mayor of Washington, DC to provide the services of the Metropolitan Police Department for federal purposes at the request of the President,” she said. “We have followed the law.”

The suit asks for a judge to vacate Bondi’s order and an order to prevent the Trump administration from “from issuing any future orders or directives or taking any other action that attempts to place MPD under the control of anyone other than the Mayor and the Chief of Police, otherwise assert operational control over MPD, or otherwise attempt to direct local law enforcement activities.”

The suit does not challenge Trump’s decision to deploy 800 National Guard members to the district. Because the district, home to more than 700,000 residents, is not a state, the president has the sole authority over the National Guard members.

Carjacking preceded Trump order

Trump earlier this week declared a “crime emergency” after a former U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, official was injured on Aug. 3 in an attempted carjacking incident around 3 a.m. Eastern near the Logan Circle neighborhood. Two Maryland teenagers were arrested on charges of unarmed carjacking in connection with the incident.

Violent crime in the district is at a historic 30-year low.

The suit notes Trump’s previous comments about his plans for the district, from his time as a 2024 presidential candidate to his most recent remarks about taking over control of the district while at a February press conference.

“I think that we should govern the District of Columbia … I think that we should run it strong, run it with law and order, make it absolutely flawless … And I think we should take over Washington, D.C. … We should govern D.C. The federal government should take over the governance of D.C.,” Trump said in the court document.

Advocates and local leaders have criticized the president’s decision, arguing that the move is nothing more than an extension of the administration’s immigration crackdown. Checkpoints have popped up all over the city in communities with a high immigrant population. 

Additionally, the district’s police chief Thursday issued a new order to allow local police to aid federal officials in immigration enforcement for immigrants not in police custody.

Trump praised Thursday’s order, calling it “a very positive thing,” especially at checkpoints in the district.

“When they stop people, they find they’re illegal, they report them, they give them to us,” he said.

President Donald Trump announces a "crime emergency" in Washington, D.C., during a White House press conference on Aug. 11, 2025. Standing behind Trump are, from left to right, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro. (Image via White House livestream)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump asserted control Monday of the District of Columbia police force and mobilized 800 National Guard troops in the nation’s capital under what he declared a “crime emergency.”

Trump took the step despite a three-decade low in violent crime in Washington, D.C., while warning he may pursue similar action in other Democratic-led cities that he sees as having “totally out of control” crime.

Trump at a press conference said that he hopes other Democratic-led cities are watching because Monday’s actions in the district are just the beginning.

“We’re starting very strongly with D.C.,” Trump said.

The president placed the Metropolitan Police Department of roughly 3,400 officers under federal control, citing the district’s Home Rule Act that allows for the federal takeover until an emergency is declared over, or 30 days after the declaration. Congress can also authorize the extension.

“We’re going to take our capital back,” Trump said.

The mayor of the district, Muriel Bowser, called Monday’s action “unsettling and unprecedented.” She added that she was not informed by the president that the district’s police force would be taken over.

DOGE staffer hurt

The escalation of federal control came after a former U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, official was injured in an attempted carjacking incident around 3 a.m. Eastern near the district neighborhood of Logan Circle. Two Maryland teenagers were arrested on charges of unarmed carjacking in connection with the incident.

The president said he is prepared to send in more National Guard “if needed,” and that he will handle the city the same way he has handled immigration at the southern border. The Trump administration has been carrying out a campaign of mass deportations.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said during the press conference that members of the National Guard will be “flowing into” the district sometime this week.

Local officials in the district protested Trump’s move. D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb, an elected official, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the Trump administration’s “actions are unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful.”

“There is no crime emergency in the District of Columbia. Violent crime in DC reached historic 30-year lows last year, and is down another 26% so far this year,” Schwalb said.

“We are considering all of our options and will do what is necessary to protect the rights and safety of District residents,” he continued.

Trump at the press conference said that he’s also directed officials to clear out encampments of homeless people in the district, but did not detail where those people would be moved.

Hundreds of federal law enforcement officers, representing agencies from the Drug Enforcement Agency to the Interior Department, were deployed across the city Saturday and Sunday.

Los Angeles and beyond

The president’s crackdown in the district occurred after a federal appeals court this summer temporarily approved Trump’s move to take control of the California National Guard from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom for the purpose of quelling protests over the administration’s aggressive immigration raids.

The president Monday slammed several major Democratic cities – Baltimore, Chicago, New York City and Oakland – and inaccurately claimed they had the highest murder rates. 

Trump said that he hopes other cities are “watching us today.”

“Maybe they’ll self clean up and maybe they’ll self do this and get rid of the cashless bail thing and all of the things that caused the problem,” the president said.

Trump pointed at Chicago, criticizing Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker.

“I understand he wants to be president,” Trump said of Pritzker, before taking a shot at the governor’s personal appearance. “I noticed he lost a little weight so maybe he has a chance.”

Pritzker is hosting Texas Democrats who left the state to prevent the state legislature from having a quorum after Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session in order to redistrict the state to give more seats to Republicans in Congress.

GOP applauds 

The top Republican on the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has jurisdiction over the district, praised Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard and take over the police department.

“President Trump is rightly using executive power to take bold and necessary action to crack down on crime and restore law and order in Washington, D.C.,” Rep. James Comer, Republican of Kentucky, said in a statement.

Comer added that the committee next month will hold a hearing with Schwalb, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson and Mayor Muriel Bowser.

While state governors have control over their National Guards, the president has control over the National Guard members in the district. The National Guard does not have arresting authority, under the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which generally bars the use of the military for domestic law enforcement purposes.

During Trump’s first term, he deployed roughly 5,000 National Guard on Black Lives Matter protesters in the district after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020.

And despite requests from congressional leaders, Trump notably delayed activating National Guard members during the 2021 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, when the president’s supporters tried to subvert the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

In one of Trump’s first actions on his inauguration day in January, he pardoned hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters who were charged by the Department of Justice for their involvement in the insurrection.

Putin meeting

In a question-and-answer session after announcing the National Guard deployment, Trump told reporters he hoped his meeting this week with Russian President Vladimir Putin would help put that country on a path to peace with Ukraine, which he said would involve each country ceding some territory to the other.

Trump described the Friday summit in Alaska — Putin’s first visit to the U.S. in a decade — as a “feel-out meeting.”

Asked if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was invited to the summit, Trump said he was “not part of it.” Any framework for peace discussed between Trump and Putin would be relayed to Zelenskyy, he said.

An end to the war would have to come from direct talks between Putin and Zelenskyy, which may or may not ultimately involve the U.S., he said.

“I’m going to put the two of them in a room, and I’ll be there or I won’t be there, and I think it’ll get solved,” he said of Putin and Zelenskyy.

Trump said he was “a little disappointed” that Zelenskyy did not immediately agree to cede territory to Russia, which invaded his country in February 2022. Zelenskyy has repeatedly said giving land to Russia was a nonstarter, including after Trump suggested it over the weekend.

“Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupier,” Zelenskyy said in a video address Saturday, according to The New York Times.