Appeals Court lets Trump keep control of California National Guard Troops in LA

A federal appeals court on Thursday night allowed President Trump to maintain command of the California National Guard in response to the Los Angeles protests, blocking a lower court that ordered him to return those forces to the state’s control.

A 3 judge panel of the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals said President Trump’s decision to federalize the Guard was entitled to a high degree of deference. The decision halts a ruling from a lower court judge who found Trump acted illegally when he activated the soldiers over opposition from California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The panel 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.”

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.

President Trump celebrated the ruling on Truth Social, calling it a “BIG WIN.” The President wrote 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.”

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