A federal judge on Thursday ruled President Trump must return control of California’s National Guard to Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) by Friday afternoon, prompting a lightning-fast appeal that began within minutes.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, an appointee of former President Clinton, temporarily blocked the president from deploying thousands of guardsmen to Los Angeles, where protests over his immigration agenda have sometimes turned violent.
But the judge paused his order until Friday at noon PDT, giving the administration a quick window to try to fast-track an emergency appeal.
“At this early stage of the proceedings, the Court must determine whether the President followed the congressionally mandated procedure for his actions,” wrote Breyer, who is also the brother of retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. “He did not.
“His actions were illegal—both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution,” the judge continued. “He must therefore return control of the California National Guard to the Governor of the State of California forthwith.”
Breyer went on to reject Trump’s justification for mobilizing the troops, saying the protests “fall far short” of a rebellion.
The decision hands a major victory, at least for now, to Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) in their quest to invalidate Trump’s deployment as illegal and an unconstitutional intrusion into state authority.
The judge left for another day, however, whether Trump needed Newsom’s consent.
Newsom did not ask the judge to completely block Trump’s deployment at this stage, instead urging him to immediately prevent the troops from patrolling the streets of Los Angeles.
Breyer refused Newsom’s Tuesday request to intervene in mere hours, instead providing the Trump administration a chance to defend themselves at a Thursday hearing before ruling.
At the hearing, Justice Department attorney Brett Shumate argued that Trump was not required to seek approval from Newsom in mobilizing the guard, calling the governor “merely a conduit.”
The president does not have to call up a governor and “invite them to Camp David” for a negotiation summit to call in the National Guard in their state, he said.
“There is one commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and when the president makes a decision, the states are subservient to the president’s decision,” Shumate said.
Newsom and Bonta sued Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Department of Defense over the deployment of several thousand National Guard troops to Los Angeles, where protests over the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement efforts have sometimes turned violent.
During a congressional hearing Thursday, Hegseth refused to commit to following court orders regarding the deployment after a Democratic congressman pressed him on the matter.
He said that the U.S. should not have “local judges determining foreign policy or national security policy for the country.”
The California officials say the deployment was unlawful. Nicholas Green, a lawyer for the state, said that the government’s argument meant the president “by fiat” could federalize the National Guard and deploy it in the streets of any civilian city in the nation. He called it an “expansive, dangerous conception” of federal executive power.
“I view the constitution a little differently than my colleagues do,” he said.
Updated at 9:37 p.m. EDT.
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