Court Sides With Trump Over California National Guard Deployment

A federal appeals court ruled that President Donald Trump acted lawfully in deploying the California National Guard to protect Los Angeles from violent anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement rioters.

On Thursday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals delivered a unanimous 3-0 decision siding with Trump. The court overturned a lower court decision that had found that Trump violated the Constitution by sending in the National Guard without California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s consent.

The 9th Circuit granted Trump an emergency injunction last week which let the president maintain control of the guard while the legal proceedings continued.

The guard “engaged only in protecting federal personnel and property,” the court said.

It took the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals only a few hours to block a lower court’s ruling against Trump’s federalization of the California National Guard in the Los Angeles riots.

The appeals court acted expeditiously because Trump was so clearly in the right, according to Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation.

“Look, what the president did is something he is statutorily authorized to do, much less looking at his constitutional authority as commander-in-chief,” von Spakovsky told The Daily Signal in an interview Friday.

He cited 10 U.S.C. 12406, which allows the president to call the National Guard—which ordinarily falls under the purview of state governors—into federal service in three circumstances: invasion or threat of invasion, rebellion or threat of rebellion, and if the president cannot execute U.S. law with regular forces.

Trump invoked the third reason when he ordered the California National Guard to assist federal law enforcement in Los Angeles amid the riots. ICE had carried out raids to detain and deport illegal aliens, and agitators physically blocked them from doing so. Protests against the raids devolved into violence, as agitators attacked ICE agents, set vehicles ablaze, and looted retail stores.

After Trump activated the California National Guard, Newsom filed a lawsuit challenging the action.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, an appointee of President Bill Clinton and brother to former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, issued an order June 12 demanding Trump turn control of the National Guard back to Newsom by Friday afternoon, June 13. The president appealed, however, and later that afternoon, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit granted his request to stay the order. (Trump appointees Mark J. Bennett and Eric D. Miller agreed with Jennifer Sung, an appointee of President Joe Biden.)

Tyler O’Neil contributed to this report.

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