President Trump signed an executive order Monday threatening to pull federal support from the District of Columbia and other jurisdictions that refuse to end their cashless bail policies.
The executive order said federal funds, services or approvals can be withheld if local leaders don’t comply.
Another executive order said federal grants and contracts for cities and states with cashless bail policies could be canceled.
Mr. Trump said the move toward cashless bail “was when the big crime in this country started.”
“Somebody kills somebody, they go and [say,] ‘Don’t worry about it. Come back in a couple of months, we’ll give you a trial.’ You never see the person again. And I mean, they kill people and they get out [with] cashless bail,” the president said.
The D.C.-based order tasks Attorney General Pam Bondi with reviewing the District’s bail policies to determine whether defendants charged with murder, rape, carjacking, assault, burglary, looting or vandalism are eligible for pretrial release.
The District broadly eliminated cash bail in the early 1990s. Since then, it has relied on judges to determine whether a defendant is a public safety or flight risk who should be kept behind bars pending a case resolution. A fact sheet from the White House calls into question the soundness of some of those judges’ decisions.
The administration cited the case against Gerald Andre Thomas, who was charged with killing one person and wounding four others while shooting up a D.C. motel room in January 2022. A D.C. Superior Court judge allowed Mr. Thomas, who was 18, to be released three months later.
Prosecutors said Mr. Thomas was rearrested several times while on pretrial release before he was charged with attempted murder in November 2023. He was accused of opening fire on two homes in Prince George’s County, Maryland.
Mr. Thomas, now 22, has been behind bars ever since. He is scheduled to go to trial in the District next year.
Mayor Muriel Bowser credited the District’s pretrial detention laws for decreasing violence after a generational crime wave in 2023.
“What has worked for us, which is why we are experiencing the record reduction in crime that we have been for the last two years, is an expansion of pretrial detention that requires judges to hold certain offenders,” Ms. Bowser said Monday. “I frankly think that that has worked better than any system.”
Mr. Trump signed a separate executive order threatening to pull federal funding for states and cities with cashless bail policies. He cited Illinois, which he said is “a great state, but it’s run so badly” by Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
Mr. Trump has engaged in a spat with Mr. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, both Democrats, as he considers sending the National Guard into Chicago to fight crime.
He also floated troop deployments to Baltimore. The president and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, sniped at each other over social media Sunday because of public safety concerns in the state.
The D.C.-specific order calls for charging all eligible defendants with federal crimes instead of sending them to D.C. Superior Court. The order also calls for defendants to be kept in federal custody when applicable rather than the city’s jail, which Mr. Trump said is in wretched shape.
“The prison they have in D.C. is horrible,” the president said. “People were subjected to live in that dog trap for so long, so unfairly. I have stories, you’ll be hearing about them.”
The executive orders were signed two weeks after Mr. Trump federalized the Metropolitan Police Department and deployed nearly 2,000 National Guard troops to address crime and lawlessness in the District.
The president touted more than 1,000 arrests since the federal surge, including 439 immigration-related arrests. More than 100 guns have been seized.
Justice Department officials said people have been arrested on homicide, gun and drug charges, and some of those detained on immigration charges were MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gang members.
Mr. Trump said the city hasn’t had a homicide in 11 days. As of midday Monday, Metropolitan Police data last recorded a homicide on Aug. 13.
“This town averaged one murder every other day for the last 20 to 30 years, which means that in two short weeks, the president and the team here have saved six or seven lives,” Vice President J.D. Vance said at the signing ceremony. “People who would have been killed on the streets of D.C., who are now living, breathing, spending time with their families because the president had the willpower to say, ‘No more.’”
About halfway through the president’s 30-day crime emergency in the District, some National Guard troops are now holstering pistols and carrying rifles.
A Defense Department official told The Associated Press that only National Guard members on certain patrol missions would be toting service weapons. Those monitoring transportation or working in administration are expected to remain unarmed.
The White House has been mum about identifying those arrested on violent crime charges during the federal surge.
Neither the FBI nor the U.S. attorney’s office for the District has responded to attempts by The Washington Times to acquire the names of three homicide suspects whose arrests have been loudly celebrated by the administration.
Ms. Bowser and other D.C. leaders have cited a 30-year low in violent crime to dispute Mr. Trump’s claims about lawlessness in the nation’s capital.
However, a police commander accused of fudging crime numbers is under internal investigation, and the Justice Department and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are investigating suspected crime data manipulation at the Metropolitan Police Department.
Correction: This article has been corrected to state that the District eliminated cash bail in the early 1990s.
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.
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