Appeals court lets Trump keep control of National Guard troops deployed to LA

An appeals court issued a ruling on Thursday evening, June 19, allowing President Donald Trump to retain control of National Guard troops he sent to Los Angeles in response to protests over immigration raids.

In a unanimous, 38-page ruling, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that conditions in the L.A. area were sufficient for the president to deploy the troops.

“Affording appropriate deference to the President’s determination, we conclude that he likely acted within his authority in federalizing the National Guard,” read the unsigned opinion.

The three-judge panel included two Trump appointees and one of former President Joe Biden.

The panel of judges said that while presidents don’t have unfettered power to seize control of a state’s guard, the Trump administration had presented enough evidence to show it had a defensible rationale for doing so, citing violent acts by protesters.

“The undisputed facts demonstrate that before the deployment of the National Guard, protesters ‘pinned down’ several federal officers and threw ‘concrete chunks, bottles of liquid, and other objects’ at the officers. Protesters also damaged federal buildings and caused the closure of at least one federal building. And a federal van was attacked by protesters who smashed in the van’s windows,” the court wrote. “The federal government’s interest in preventing incidents like these is significant.”

Trump posted a celebratory note on social media after the ruling came out.

Calling it a “BIG WIN,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account that “all over the United States, if our Cities, and our people, need protection, we are the ones to give it to them should State and Local Police be unable, for whatever reason, to get the job done.”

California state officials, meanwhile, vowed to continue to fight the Trump administration in court.

The governor’s office released a statement saying that although Gov. Gavin Newsom was disappointed that Trump was allowed to retain control of the California National Guard for now, he welcomed other findings by the panel of judges.

“The court rightly rejected Trump’s claim that he can do whatever he wants with the National Guard and not have to explain himself to a court,” Newsom said in the statement. “The President is not a king and is not above the law. We will press forward with our challenge to President Trump’s authoritarian use of U.S. military soldiers against citizens.”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta also made clear that the matter was far from being settled.

“The Trump Administration far overreached its authority with its unprecedented and unlawful federalization of the California National Guard and deployment of military troops into our communities,” Bonta said in a statement, adding that troops were not needed in L.A. because state and local law enforcement officers had “responded effectively to isolated episodes of violence.”

“While the court did not provide immediate relief for Angelenos today, we remain confident in our arguments and will continue the fight,” Bonta said.

The decision by the appeals court halts a ruling from a lower court judge, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, who found Trump acted illegally when he activated the soldiers over opposition from Newsom.

In its decision, the appeals court concluded that “it is likely that the President lawfully exercised his statutory authority” in federalizing control of the guard.

It also found that even if the federal government failed to notify the governor of California before federalizing the National Guard as required by law, Newsom had no power to veto the president’s order.

The ruling means control of the California National Guard will stay in federal hands as the lawsuit continues to unfold.

Litigation is set to return on Friday to the San Francisco courtroom of Judge Breyer for another hearing. He is weighing whether to issue a more durable preliminary injunction restricting what Trump can do with some 4,000 National Guard troops or 700 active-duty Marines his administration has also deployed into the city.

Breyer’s previously issued temporary restraining order concerned only the National Guard and whether it was lawful for Trump to mobilize them under federal control.

At Friday’s hearing, he is also set to address a state request to limit troops under federal control to guarding federal buildings, and to bar them from accompanying Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on the workplace raids that sparked the protests.

The court case could have wider implications on the president’s power to deploy soldiers within the United States after Trump directed immigration officials to prioritize deportations from other Democratic-run cities.

Trump earlier this month federalized the California National Guard, deploying more than 4,000 troops to Los Angeles to respond to large-scale demonstrations over immigration enforcement efforts.

The administration made those moves without the consent or request of Newsom; the Democratic governor later sued, requesting a temporary restraining order to halt the National Guard troops from being used to enforce immigration or civil laws in the state.

Breyer granted a restraining order last week, putting Newsom back in control of the Guard and calling Trump’s actions “illegal.”

But lawyers for the Trump administration appealed, and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked Breyer’s ruling.

During Tuesday’s hearing before the three-judge panel, Brett Shumate, an attorney for the Trump administration, told the judges that the National Guard is needed to protect federal buildings and agents in Los Angeles amid “ongoing violence.”

Without the Guard, Shumate argued, properties and people would be at risk.

Shumate also argued that the courts do not have a role in reviewing Trump’s order federalizing the National Guard.

Meanwhile, Samuel Harbourt, who represented California, said a further pause of Breyer’s ruling would “profoundly injure the state of California and our nation more generally (because) it would allow defendents to continue diverting thousands of guardsmen away from critical work at the state level, including wildfire prevention and drug interdiction.”

He also argued that continued federalization of the National Guard escalates tensions and risks violence in Los Angeles.

“The president has not even attempted, defendants have made no attempt whatsoever, to provide argument or evidence that they even contemplated more modest measures to the extreme response of calling in the National Guard and militarizing the situation,” Harbourt, a supervising deputy solicitor general for the California Department of Justice, said.

The National Guard hasn’t been activated without a governor’s permission since 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to protect a civil rights march in Alabama, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

Tuesday’s appeals hearing lasted for just over an hour.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’ office did not immediately respond to requests for comment about Thursday’s court ruling.

Protests in Los Angeles have calmed significantly in recent days. On Tuesday, the mayor lifted the dusk-to-dawn curfew she had previously imposed in parts of downtown L.A.

Lawyers for Trump administration, California make their cases for who should control National Guard

Newsom wins legal round over troops, but Trump appeal sends battle to June 17 hearing

The Associated Press and New York Times contributed to this report.