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In Washington Crackdown, Making a Federal Case Out of Low-Level Arrests [View all]
In Washington Crackdown, Making a Federal Case Out of Low-Level Arrests
A single afternoon in court illustrated the new ways in which laws are being enforced after President Trump’s takeover of the city’s police.
Law enforcement officials searching a car after a traffic stop in Washington last week. President Donald Trump has cast his crackdown on crime as a success, and suggested on Friday that it was a blueprint he would seek to apply to other cities, including Chicago. Eric Lee for The New York Times
By Devlin Barrett
Reporting from Washington
Aug. 24, 2025
Updated 3:42 p.m. ET
As President Trump posed triumphantly for photos with police officers, government agents and members of the National Guard in Southeast Washington last week, lawyers across town in federal court grappled with his new brand of justice.
The stream of defendants who shuffled through a federal courtroom on Thursday afternoon illustrated the new ways in which laws are being enforced in the nation’s capital after the president’s takeover of the city’s police. They were appearing before a magistrate judge on charges that would typically be handled at the local court level, if they were filed at all.
One man had been arrested over an open container of alcohol. Another had been charged with threatening the president after delivering a drunken outburst following his arrest on vandalism. And one defendant’s gun case so alarmed prosecutors that they intend to drop the case.
Mr. Trump has cast his crackdown on crime as a success, and suggested on Friday that it was a blueprint he would seek to apply to other cities, including Chicago. To defense lawyers and even some prosecutors, though, many of the cases that have landed in court have raised concerns that the takeover seems intended to artificially inflate its effect because government lawyers have been instructed to file the most serious federal charges, no matter how minor the incident.
{snip}
Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Alan Feuer contributed reporting.
Devlin Barrett covers the Justice Department and the F.B.I. for The Times.
A single afternoon in court illustrated the new ways in which laws are being enforced after President Trump’s takeover of the city’s police.
Law enforcement officials searching a car after a traffic stop in Washington last week. President Donald Trump has cast his crackdown on crime as a success, and suggested on Friday that it was a blueprint he would seek to apply to other cities, including Chicago. Eric Lee for The New York Times
By Devlin Barrett
Reporting from Washington
Aug. 24, 2025
Updated 3:42 p.m. ET
As President Trump posed triumphantly for photos with police officers, government agents and members of the National Guard in Southeast Washington last week, lawyers across town in federal court grappled with his new brand of justice.
The stream of defendants who shuffled through a federal courtroom on Thursday afternoon illustrated the new ways in which laws are being enforced in the nation’s capital after the president’s takeover of the city’s police. They were appearing before a magistrate judge on charges that would typically be handled at the local court level, if they were filed at all.
One man had been arrested over an open container of alcohol. Another had been charged with threatening the president after delivering a drunken outburst following his arrest on vandalism. And one defendant’s gun case so alarmed prosecutors that they intend to drop the case.
Mr. Trump has cast his crackdown on crime as a success, and suggested on Friday that it was a blueprint he would seek to apply to other cities, including Chicago. To defense lawyers and even some prosecutors, though, many of the cases that have landed in court have raised concerns that the takeover seems intended to artificially inflate its effect because government lawyers have been instructed to file the most serious federal charges, no matter how minor the incident.
{snip}
Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Alan Feuer contributed reporting.
Devlin Barrett covers the Justice Department and the F.B.I. for The Times.
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