Free DC activists gather outside federal court in Washington on Friday in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Friday reversed course and agreed to leave the Washington, D.C., police chief in control of the department, while Attorney General Pam Bondi, in a new memo, directed the District’s police to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement regardless of any city law.

The order from Bondi came after officials in the nation’s capital sued Friday to block President Donald Trump’s takeover of the Washington police. The night before, his administration had escalated its intervention into the city’s law enforcement by naming a federal official as the new emergency head of the department.

The attorney general’s new order represents a partial retreat for the Trump administration in the face of intense skepticism from a judge over the legality of Bondi’s earlier directive that sought to put the police force under the full control of the federal government. But Bondi also signaled the administration would continue to pressure D.C. leaders to help federal authorities aggressively pursue immigrants in the country illegally, despite city laws on the books that limit cooperation between police and immigration authorities.

In a social media post Friday evening, Bondi criticized D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb, saying he “continues to oppose our efforts to improve public safety.” But she added, “We remain committed to working closely with Mayor Bowser, who is dedicated to ensuring the safety of residents, workers, and visitors in Washington, D.C.”

Bowser’s office did not immediately respond from to a request for comment Friday on the Justice Department’s new order.

Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith said Trump’s earlier move to sideline her would threaten law and order by upending the command structure. “In my nearly three decades in law enforcement, I have never seen a single government action that would cause a greater threat to law and order than this dangerous directive,” she said in a court filing.

The legal battle was the latest evidence of the escalating tensions in a mostly Democratic city that now has its police department under the control of the Republican president’s administration. Trump’s takeover is historic, yet it had played out with a slow ramp-up in federal law enforcement officials and National Guard troops to start the week.

As the weekend approached, though, signs across the city — from the streets to the legal system — suggested a deepening crisis over who controls the city’s immigration and policing policies, the district’s right to govern itself and daily life for the millions of people who live and work in the metro area.

The two sides sparred in court for hours Friday before U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, who is overseeing the lawsuit. She indicated the law likely doesn’t grant the Trump administration power to fully take over city police, but it probably does give the president more power than the city might like.

“The way I read the statute, the president can ask, the mayor must provide, but the president can’t control,” said Reyes, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Joe Biden.

The judge pushed the two sides to make a compromise, promising to issue a court order temporarily blocking the administration from naming a new chief if they couldn’t agree.

An attorney for the Trump administration, Yaakov Roth, said in court that the move to sideline Smith came after an immigration order that still held back some aid to federal authorities. He argued that the president has broad authority to determine what kind of help police in Washington must provide.

The police takeover is the latest move by Trump to test the limits of his legal authorities to carry out his agenda, relying on obscure statutes and a supposed state of emergency to bolster his tough-on-crime message and his plans to speed up the mass deportation of people in the United States illegally.

It also marks one of the most sweeping assertions of federal authority over a local government in modern times. While Washington has grappled with spikes in violence and visible homelessness, the city’s homicide rate ranks below those of several other major U.S. cities, and the capital is not in the throes of the public safety collapse the Trump administration has portrayed.

The president has more power over the nation’s capital than other cities, but D.C. has elected its own mayor and city council since the Home Rule Act was signed in 1973.

Trump is the first president to exert control over the city’s police force since it was passed. The law limits that control to 30 days without congressional approval, though Trump has suggested he’d seek to extend it.