The Columbia district launched a legal battle against the administration of Donald Trump and tried to block what the city officials describe as illegal and dangerous federal takeover of its police forces. On Friday, a lawsuit filed by General Washington DC Brian Schwalb is accused by President Donald Trump of exceeding his constitutional authority and threatening public security.
The hearing at the Federal Court of DC began Judge Ana C. Reyes, the named Biden, the chairman of the emergency hearing on the urban suit.
Why does Washington accept Trump’s administration to court?
The core of the dispute is to decide President Trump with rarely used emergency powers to make the Metropolitan Police (MPD) under direct federal control. This step, announced at the beginning of this week, also allowed the deployment of hundreds of National Guard soldiers to the American capital.
The White House insists that the intervention is essential to deal with what it calls a “criminal emergency situation”, despite the official statistics of the Ministry of Justice, showing that the degree of crime has declined. Trump’s order for the DC police chief for her operating authority appoints a drug recovery leader Terrence Cole as a “emergency police commissioner” with extensive powers.
In his directive, the US General Pam Bondi, also abolished urban politicians that limited police cooperation with federal immigration enforcement and ordered officers to fully enforce the laws against blocking streets and occupying public spaces.
What does the action claim?
The city complaint filed in Washington Federal Court claims that the 1973 domestic rule, which provides DC its limited self -governing powers, does not allow the President to confiscate direct control of the police. Instead, it allows the President to apply for the mayor’s police assistance under “special emergency conditions” – significantly narrower power.
The Federal Order “Legal Prosecutor Schwalb that the Federal Order” would increase the structure of the MPD command has been heard among more than 3,100 officers and threatened both public and coercive officers “.
The head of the Metropolitan Police Pamela A. Smith said in a sworn statement that her department had received no preliminary notification of the President’s plans. Smith, who called Bondi’s directive “the most dangerous government actions”, which witnessed in almost three decades, warned that for law and order it was a greater threat than the problems he claimed to be resolved.
How did the federal government defend its actions?
White House spokesman Abigail Jackson said that the administration “has legal authority” acts and quotes “unsuccessful leadership” in the city and the need to restore public security. US lawyer for DC Jeanine Pirro has strengthened the focus of administration on the solution of violent crime, especially crimes concerning young perpetrators and described them as “gangs and crews” who “think they can beat hell”.
What is politically at stake?
The unique status of Washington DC – neither the state nor the typical community – has long been vulnerable to the federal intervention. According to the Home Rule Act, Congress retains its final supervision and the President controls the National Guard of the City. While the takeover of the local police is allowed up to 30 days during the emergency situation, they require an extension of congress consent.
Mayor Muriel Bowser, a long -term advocate of DC statehood, condemned this step, but stopped before growing tension with the White House. Schwalb, however, took a more militant tone and called Trump’s intervention “unprecedented, unnecessary and illegal”.
What happens next?
The federal judge is scheduled to hear Washington’s application for a temporary limiting order at 2 pm. If it was awarded, it could immediately stop the efforts of Trump’s administration to control MPD, while the legal case is taking place.
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