Judge calls Trump administration’s National Guard deployment in D.C. illegal

A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard in Washington is illegal.

U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb wrote in Tuesday’s opinion that the federal government exceeded the bounds of its authority. The ruling will not take effect until Dec. 11, to allow for appeal proceedings.

The District of Columbia sued the administration in September, shortly after it deployed the National Guard from other states to the nation’s capital in an effort to address what Trump called “out of control crime.”

The lawsuit, filed by D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb, alleges that the president’s unilateral deployment of the troops from other states to patrol the city without the mayor’s consent violates the Home Rule Act, which gives Washington residents control over local affairs while Congress retains ultimate authority over the district.

“From the beginning, we made clear that the U.S. military should not be policing American citizens on American soil,” Schwalb said in a statement after the ruling. “Normalizing the use of military troops for domestic law enforcement sets a dangerous precedent, where the President can disregard states’ independence and deploy troops wherever and whenever he wants — with no check on his military power. This unprecedented federal overreach is not normal, or legal.”

In a statement, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said:

President Trump is well within his lawful authority to deploy the National Guard in Washington D.C. to protect federal assets and assist law enforcement with specific tasks. This lawsuit is nothing more than another attempt — at the detriment of DC residents — to undermine the President’s highly successful operations to stop violent crime in DC.

The legal battle is similar to ones that have played out across the country, including in Chicago; Los Angeles; and Portland, Oregon.

The city of Portland and the state of Oregon sued the Trump administration in September over its attempts to send in National Guard troops, and earlier this month, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction against the deployment. Like in other cases, the administration is appealing.