California National Guard Stays Under Trump’s Control in Late-Night Ruling
A U.S. Appeals Court has ruled against California Governor Gavin Newsom’s attempt to gain control of the California National Guard amid unrest in Los Angeles. The three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit overturned a lower court decision, asserting that the National Guard remains under federal authority until a hearing scheduled for the following Tuesday. The ruling allows President Donald Trump to deploy around 4,000 National Guard members and 700 Marines to manage protests and riots resulting from his enforcement of immigration laws. Trump’s administration argued that newsom’s actions would undermine federal authority and endanger Department of Homeland Security personnel. A previous ruling had deemed Trump’s deployment illegal and expressed concern over equating protests with rebellion.
An appeals court on Thursday night slapped away Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s hands from taking control of the California National Guard.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a district court judge’s ruling that would have wrested control of the National Guard from President Donald Trump, who called out Guard members and Marines to deal with riots in Los Angeles, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The three judges, two appointed by Trump and one by former President Joe Biden, scheduled a hearing on the issue for Tuesday, which means the Guard remains under federal control until then.
“The Appeals Court ruled last night that I can use the National Guard to keep our cities, in this case Los Angeles, safe,” Trump wrote on .
“If I didn’t send the Military into Los Angeles, that city would be burning to the ground right now. We saved L.A. Thank you for the Decision!!!” Trump wrote.
In its appeal to the 9th Circuit, lawyers for the Trump administration called the lower court’s decision against the federal government “unprecedented” and an “extraordinary intrusion on the president’s constitutional authority as commander in chief,” according to ABC.
About 4,000 National Guard members and 700 Marines were sent to the Los Angeles area after protests against Trump’s enforcement of immigration laws grew out of control.
In its argument, the Trump administration said Newsom’s effort to yank control of the Guard away from Trump was “legally meritless,” according to The Washington Post.
The federal argument said, giving Newsom control of the Guard “would jeopardize the safety of Department of Homeland Security personnel and interfere with the Federal Government’s ability to carry out operations.”
Administration lawyers said, handing Trump a defeat would cripple federal power to “mobilize state National Guards into federal service to quell riotous mobs committing crimes against federal personnel.”
“The order also puts federal officers in harms’ way every minute that it is in place,” the federal lawyers said.
Brett Shumate, a Justice Department attorney, noted that Guard members and federal troops were not called to support law enforcement, but to protect federal agents and property.
As noted by the LA Times, the White House said the rules governing deployment of the armed forces allow a president to federalize the National Guard if there is “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States.”
U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer was not persuaded.
In his ruling, he wrote that Trump’s actions “were illegal — both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
Breyer added that he was “troubled by the implication” inherent in the Trump administration’s argument that “protest against the federal government, a core civil liberty protected by the First Amendment, can justify a finding of rebellion.”
“The protests in Los Angeles fall far short of ‘rebellion,’” Breyer wrote. He said the administration did not prove there existed “a violent, armed, organized, open and avowed uprising against the government as a whole.”
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