Posted on 06/08/2025 1:34:04 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Legal experts questioned the president’s response to unrest in Los Angeles, saying the military personnel involved will face strict limitations under the law.
President Donald Trump’s order to deploy 2,000 California National Guard troops to Los Angeles is unprecedented, relying on an unorthodox use of a law aimed at quelling serious domestic unrest or an attack on the United States by a foreign power, some legal experts said Sunday.
Trump invoked a section of the Armed Forces Act that allows the president to bypass a governor’s authority over the National Guard and call those troops into federal service when he considers it necessary to repel an invasion or suppress a rebellion, the law states. California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, has sharply criticized the move, saying state and local authorities have the situation under control and accusing Trump of attempting to create a “spectacle.”
The directive, announced by the White House late Saturday, came after some protests against immigration raids turned violent, with protesters setting cars aflame and lighting fireworks, and law enforcement in tactical gear using tear gas and stun grenades. Trump claimed in his executive order that the unrest in Southern California was prohibiting the execution of immigration enforcement and therefore met the definition of a rebellion.
Trump said the National Guard troops would be used to “temporarily” protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and “other United States Government personnel who are performing Federal functions, including the enforcement of Federal law, and to protect Federal property, at locations where protests against these functions are occurring or are likely to occur based on current threat assessments and planned operations.”
Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, said the...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
No, he doesn’t.
Too many people don’t know history.
How can this be “unprecedented” when it’s no different than what Trump did during the St. George of Fentanyl riots in 2020 in cities like Portland and Seattle?
They’ll go totally apeshit when he sends in the Camp Pendleton Marines.
Not “unorthodox” by any stretch of the pravda media’s imagination.
Just declare Martial Law already. It is the only way to expel the Invader Illegal Aliens en mass.
U.S. presidents have deployed National Guard troops within states many times:
1957: Little Rock, Arkansas (President Dwight D. Eisenhower)
1962: Oxford, Mississippi (President John F. Kennedy)
1963: Tuscaloosa, Alabama (President John F. Kennedy)
1965: Selma, Alabama (President Lyndon B. Johnson)
1967: Detroit, Michigan (President Lyndon B. Johnson)
1968: Baltimore, Maryland (President Lyndon B. Johnson)
1970: New York City, New York (President Richard M. Nixon)
1980: Florida, Cuban Refugee Crisis (President Jimmy Carter)
1992: Los Angeles, California (President George H.W. Bush)
2005: Gulf Coast (President George W. Bush)
2020: Washington, D.C. (President Donald J. Trump)
2025: Los Angeles, California (President Donald J. Trump)
We’re all waiting for a district judge in Rhode Island to order it stopped. Surprised it hasn’t already happened.
Newsom and the rest of the California Dems would never ask for National Guard troops. The only thing they will do is complain about the National Guard troops.
Kudos to the WaPo for at least acknowledging that the riots were violent.
Yeah, no, it’s happened before.
Apparently the authors have forgotten that Republican President Eisenhower had to call out the National Guard back in 1957 when Democrat Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas interfered with the racial integration of Central High School in Little Rock.
More likely, selectively ignore it.
From ABC archives:
President John F. Kennedy responded to the governor's stubbornness by federalizing the Alabama National Guard. Wallace eventually moved from the door after Gen. Henry Graham informed him, "Sir, it is my sad duty to ask you to step aside under the orders of the president of the United States."
it is not illegal or even very unusual, tho usually the state governors are responsible enough to handle the NG deployments
ultimately, however, the POTUS has this authority
President Trump is just exercising the U.S. Constitution, Article 4, Section 4 to prevent the #2 Mexican “***wiper” Division from invading America and colonizing Becca Bisant’s Vermont
I was pre-teen and I remember that.
Why bother reporting what a paper that nobody believes in writes? Even the liberals know it’s a joke (even though they’ll never admit it.)
Bypassing Useless Newsome.... hahhahh. Way to go Trump!
Inasmuch as the National Guard was insufficent to get the city under control, Union troops from the recently concluded battle of Gettysburg had to be diverted to finish the job.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.