The federal judge threatens the prohibition on Trump police control

On Friday, a judge weighed the limitation of the power of the Trump administration to assume control of the Washington Police Service, DC, after suggesting that the appointment of the chief of the administration of drugs, Terry Cole, to assume that the functions of the police chief were illegal.

Judge Ana Reyes gave lawyers for the Ministry of Justice and the Government of DC until the start of the evening to conclude an agreement which would limit the authority of Cole, or it issued a temporary prohibition order.

Reyes, appointed by Biden, said that wider questions about President Donald Trump’s decree declaring a criminal emergency in the national capital would be addressed during a justice hearing next week.

In the immediate future, the Trump administration will always have a largely control over the Metropolitan Police department, whether it reached an agreement with the DC government or becomes subject to an order from the court.

“ Brazenly illegal ”: DC officials increase the fight with Trump on the control of the police

The mayor of Washington, DC, Muriel Bowser, speaks at a press conference after President Donald Trump announced a federal takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department at Wilson Building on August 11, 2025 in Washington, DC (Images Kevin Dietsch / Getty)

Reyes summoned the emergency hearing after the DC prosecutor of DC Brian Schwalb continued to block the takeover by Trump of DC law implementation operations. Schwalb argued that the decision was unconstitutional and violated the law on the rule of domicile, a federal law which gives residents of DC the ability to motorize.

The hearing was a small setback for the administration, because Reyes said that Cole should go through Mayor Muriel Bowser to give other guidelines to the police.

Friday, Schwalb designed the audience as a victory, telling journalists that his “expected the key question with regard to the control and command of (the MPD) was resolved today, and that it is clear, in law, that he is under the police chief appointed by the mayor.”

But the law also implies that Bowser must be strongly in defense to Cole, which means that it is likely to continue to carry out the police priorities of the Trump administration at DC concerning immigration and roaming for a period of 30 days.

The lawyer for the MJ Yaakov Roth, arguing on behalf of the government, said that the president had “a lot of discretion to determine what is necessary and appropriate”.

Bowser and del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, DD.C., attended the hearing at the ES Federal Justice Palace. Barrett Prettyman. Apart from the building, dozens gathered to protest against the federal takeover, which also included the activation of hundreds of soldiers of the National Guard in DC more demonstrators, including those of the “DC Libre” movement, appeared in the courtroom, highlighting the tension that arose on Trump’s orders.

“What we know is that DC residents are worried and worried, and we have a wave of federal officers,” Bowser told journalists. “The chef’s work (Pamela) Smith during this week was to ensure that if we have and even if we have federal officers, they are used strategically.”

DEA HEAD says that telephone calls come from “all over the country” from fed agents wishing to help DC

Trump has appointed Terry Cole to become the next Drug Administrator administrator. (AP / virginia.gov)

At the start of the hearing, Reyes observed that she would be the first judge to reign over the authority of a president to temporarily take control of the Metropolitan Police Department under the law on the internal rule since the Congress adopted the legislation in 1973, stressing the importance of the case.

The judge clearly indicated that she had not planned to immediately decide if there was an emergency of crime, as Trump said in his decree, but that a certain temporary resolution was still necessary.

“I want to arrive at a practical solution because the weather is short and there are people who need to know who they take a direction and what they do,” Reyes told both parties.

Reyes, who became known to preside over a quick court that keeps the litigants on their guard, took a meticulous tone on Friday.

“I do not think that the law is as close as you think or as wide as Mr. Roth thinks,” she told the lawyer Mitchell Reich, who pleaded on behalf of the DC prosecutor general.

Schwalb’s trial challenged Trump’s decree, which temporarily federally federally federally, under article 740 of the law on the rule of domicile and the more recent law of the Attorney General Pam Bondi Thursday who sought to install Cole as an emergency commissioner of the DC police forces. The Schwalb office argued that the measures were unprecedented and could “be of operational ravages” to the police service.

Schwalb urged the court to block the two ordinances of the Trump administration, declaring that the temporary takeover by the Federal Government of DC police under the interior rule law “does not authorize this cheeky usurpation of the district authority on its own government”.

AG Bondi strips the power of the DC police chief, cancels the protections of the city of the sanctuary in the crime repression operation

The police set up a checkpoint on the roadside on the 14th Street Northwest on August 13, 2025, in Washington, DC (Katopodis / Getty Images Tasos)

“They affect the right of the district of autonomy and security of DC residents and visitors in danger,” he said.

Critics have excrupted Trump’s decree, arguing that this does not reflect any real emergency in the national capital, which has seen a drop in violent crimes (although by how exactly, remains a discord).

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The lawyer Norm Eisen, the former ethics tsar of the White House under President Barack Obama, told journalists Thursday that Trump’s order at DC is the last of a “model of aggression against the rule of law” in his second mandate as president, which all implies declaring various “emergency” forms as a means of determining normal policy processes.

Trump “told DC a false emergency, said Eisen. “There is no” emergency “on which this action with MPD or the federal army is founded.”

Jessica Sonkin contributed to this report.