The District of Columbia filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Friday arguing that U.S. President Donald Trump’s takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department is illegal.
Brian Schwalb, the district’s attorney general, argued that the president overstepped the terms of the Home Rule Act, which gave the district self-governance in 1973.
Congress retains “ultimate legislative authority” over the district, “including the right to review legislation enacted by the council” per the 1973 law, the lawsuit says. “But unless Congress intervenes, the act provides that control over local matters remains in the hands of the District of Columbia’s locally elected leaders.”
Trump federalized the district’s police force by executive order on Monday and deployed 800 National Guardsmen and hundreds of federal agents to assist local police.
The district has one of the highest murder rates of any major city in the United States, with more than five times as many annual homicides per capita as Los Angeles.
In the wake of the fatal shooting of two staffers for the Israeli embassy in Washington, leaders of the local Jewish community called for improved security measures for Jewish institutions.
Ron Halber, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, told JNS that he supports efforts to further combat crime in the district, but he believes that the Trump order is “showmanship” and a temporary measure.
“You think FBI agents are used to handing out traffic tickets or pulling over people or that unarmed national guardsmen are going to scare anybody?” he said. “We know how to protect our institutions if we have the resources.”
Halber and the JCRC of Greater Washington condemned the executive order on Monday and called for Trump to withdraw it and focus on providing additional funding for local police.
“We have deep relationships in this area with all the police chiefs, who I speak to on a regular basis,” Halber told JNS. “We need to give them the tools to do their job. That’s what we need, not just theatrics.”
Trump has laid much of the blame for the district’s high crime rate on Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat. At a press conference on Monday, the president said that Bowser is “a good person who has tried, but she has been given many chances.”
Rabbi Levi Shemtov, executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad), told JNS that Trump’s executive order might prompt the mayor to pay more attention to the security needs of the district’s Jews.
“I think one needs to be careful before assigning blame, but there’s no doubt she could have done a better job in several instances, like the encampments at George Washington University,” he told JNS. “We hope that she will do more going forward so that she regains a level of safety we all need.”
“Some people say she’s against Jews. I don’t believe it,” the rabbi said. “I think she’s just busy with a lot of other things and hasn’t paid enough attention to our community.” (The mayor was a no-show at a memorial event that Shemtov organized for the slain Israeli embassy staffers.)
Bowser’s promises to commit additional security to Jewish institutions had little to show for them, according to Shemtov.
“A little while back, we received an email of increased police presence outside institutions of worship,” he told JNS. “Unfortunately, our private security guards didn’t see a police car even one time.”
“At the same time, the police chief herself is approachable, and I hope that between now and the high holidays, we’ll have a dialogue to get a bit more focused on what’s needed and what they’re willing to do,” he said.
Leo Terrell, chair of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism and senior counsel to the department, has criticized the mayor repeatedly in recent weeks about the district’s failure to keep Jews safe.
“I am determined to meet with Mayor Muriel Bowser to discuss antisemitism,” he wrote on July 9, sharing a letter he penned on July 1 to Bowser requesting a meeting “to discuss a deeply troubling rise in antisemitic incidents in the District of Columbia, including reports that Jewish residents are being forced to pay additional fees or ‘Jewish taxes’ to participate in or secure protection at public events in the District.”
“I saw blood being wiped off the sidewalk outside the Capital Jewish Museum after a domestic terrorist murdered Israeli embassy staffers,” he wrote on July 9. He added that day that the mayor offered to have her staff meet with him instead. (JNS sought comment from Terrell.)
On Aug. 1, Terrell wrote, “Do you remember when I wrote Mayor Muriel Bowser a month ago to talk about antisemitism in D.C.? Any guesses on her response?” He stated that “as a surprise to no one, Mayor Bowser didn’t respond to my request to meet with her directly in order to discuss rising antisemitism in D.C.”
Pamela Bondi, the U.S. attorney general, attempted to sideline the district’s police chief on Thursday by naming the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration as Washington’s “emergency police commissioner.”
In response to D.C.’s lawsuit against the Trump administration, a federal judge gave the Department of Justice a 90-minute deadline at a hearing on Friday afternoon, requiring the department to rewrite Bondi’s order or face a temporary restraining order.
The judge said that Bondi should direct the new commissioner to issue instructions through Bowser rather than directly to the district’s police chief.
Halber told JNS that top-down policing actions in the district could prompt a wider political backlash.
“It may appeal to some people in Trump’s base, but it’s also going to motivate a tremendous amount of people to come out who are appalled by it,” Halber said. “My responsibility is to look out for the security of Jewish institutions and their constituents and clients.”
“We’ve already asked Congress and the president to increase the Nonprofit Security Grant Program to $1 billion to give more money so that we can use it for operating costs and to provide money for police departments,” he said. “There’s a national consensus on that.”
