A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit temporarily lifted an order that blocked President Donald Trump from deploying the National Guard in D.C.
The one-page order said the ruling will stay in place as the court considers the administration’s appeal.
“The purpose of this administrative stay is to give the court sufficient opportunity to consider the motion for stay pending appeal and should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion,” the judges wrote.
In September, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued the Trump administration, claiming the deployment “subjected the District to serious and irreparable harm.”
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb sided with Schwalb on November 20, a week before a man shot two National Guardsmen in D.C.
“The Court finds that the District’s exercise of sovereign powers within its jurisdiction is irreparably harmed by Defendants’ actions in deploying the Guards,” Cobb ruled.
The administration appealed Cobb’s ruling, insisting the deployment is lawful:
This deployment is plainly lawful. The D.C. Guard is a federal entity over which the President serves as Commander-in-Chief. Even without express statutory authorization, he may deploy them to a federal enclave for federal purposes without judicial second-guessing. In any event, the President also has express statutory power: Federal law authorizes both the D.C. Guard and Guard members from other States to provide “[s]upport of operations or missions undertaken … at the request of the President or Secretary of Defense,” which is exactly what deployed Guard members are doing. 32 U.S.C. § 502(f)(1), (2)(A). If that were not enough, the D.C. Code recognizes the Guard’s permissible use “to aid the civil authorities in the execution of the laws,” D.C. Code § 49-404, and the Commanding General’s power to “order out any portion of the National Guard” for any “duties” he “may deem proper,” id. § 49-102. It is hard to imagine a decision less susceptible to judicial overriding than the Commander-in-Chief’s directives that are squarely authorized by multiple federal laws.
[Featured image via YouTube]
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