However you slice it, President Trump has implemented de facto martial law in the District of Columbia. He declared an emergency, seized control of the 3,100-member Metropolitan Police Department, unnecessarily called out the National Guard — and no one except the federal courts can stop him.

With crime down in the District, the takeover is a grotesquely incompetent pretextual policy that sets a bad precedent, and perhaps a chilling dry run for things to come in other blue cities such as Baltimore, Oakland and even New York City.

Implementing Trump’s executive order, Attorney General Pam Bondi directed D.C.’s mayor to recognize Terrance Cole, head of the DEA, as “emergency police commissioner.”

Trump’s action was so at odds with the 1973 Home Rule Act that D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and D.C. Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb sued to enjoin the unprecedented takeover. “The Administration is abusing its temporary, limited authority under the law,” Schwalb tweeted on Aug. 15. “This is the gravest threat to Home Rule D.C. has ever faced, and we are fighting to stop it.”

Following a hearing before D.C. District Judge Ana Reyes, the court directed the Justice Department to revamp Trump’s order. The DEA administrator will be demoted from police chief to a liaison to the D.C. government, but the distinction is without a difference. The Trump administration remains in control of the Metropolitan Police Department.

Although the judge said Trump might enlist local officers to help enforce immigration laws, the court........

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