Overview

• U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled that the June federalization of California’s National Guard was unlawful and that some troop activities violated the Posse Comitatus Act.
• The Ninth Circuit temporarily stayed Breyer’s orders, allowing federalized Guard members and some Marines to remain on duty in Los Angeles while the case proceeds.
• Legal experts quoted by Fox News said courts, including the Supreme Court, often defer to presidential authority and predicted the deployment could ultimately be upheld.
• An opposing analysis in The Hill praised Breyer’s opinion as a clear limit on domestic military policing and rejected creating new exceptions to the Posse Comitatus Act.
• Trump has threatened similar deployments to Chicago, New York and Baltimore, and in Washington, D.C., the president’s distinct authority over the Guard coincided with crime reductions cited by Mayor Muriel Bowser as the D.C. attorney general pursued a lawsuit.