The Department of Justice (DOJ) agreed to back away from appointing a commissioner to take command of Washington, D.C., police after a federal judge expressed concerns Friday.
Government attorneys said at a hearing that Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) head Terry Cole will instead become President Trump’s designee to request services from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) under the president’s emergency authority invoked this week.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes indicated she was prepared to declare Cole’s installment as commissioner unlawful if the administration did not change course. After nearly two hours of private conversations between the two sides, the Justice Department relented without the judge intervening.
“We’re rewriting this in the next 45 minutes,” Justice Department attorney Yaakov Roth told the judge.
The government submitted the new version on the court docket a short time later, signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi.
It marks a victory, at least for now, for city officials in their lawsuit that seeks to keep command of the police force under MPD Chief Pamela Smith.
But the judge suggested the administration is ultimately likely to succeed in at least some of its efforts to demand that MPD officers assist with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“If the president declares an emergency with respect to whatnot, and says I want the services of the MPD to help ICE arrest illegal aliens, I don’t — I’m not sure that there’s anything wrong with that,” Reyes said.
The judge signaled she’ll hold additional proceedings on that and other questions next week.
In the meantime, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb’s (D) office made clear it’s prepared to return to court immediately if it’s not satisfied with the administration’s promised rewrite.
Citing a crime emergency, Trump invoked emergency powers Monday under the Home Rule Act to begin exerting control over the MPD as he also deployed the National Guard. The battle over the MPD landed in court after the administration escalated its efforts Thursday via a new order from Bondi.
Bondi announced Cole would become the MPD’s emergency police commissioner and must approve any new policy directives moving forward. The order also lifted several MPD practices related to cooperation with immigration enforcement.
Schwalb quickly sued by the morning, leading to a hastily scheduled hearing in Reyes’s courtroom Friday afternoon. Reyes is an appointee of former President Biden.
At the hearing, the judge noted she was the first judge in the Home Rule Act’s roughly 50-year history to consider the emergency provision Trump has invoked.
“Huzzah!” the judge exclaimed.
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