Trump admin’s deployment of National Guard to quell LA riots likely to be upheld by appeals court
Judge Sung told the state that in the 1827 case, the Supreme Court “seemingly rejected the exact argument that you’re making.”
Jun 18, 2025 minute read
The Trump administration has requested that a federal appeals court throw out a district court’s ruling that requires President Donald Trump to return the command of National Guard troops deployed to Los Angeles amid violent anti-ICE riots back to California Governor Gavin Newsom.
In court on Tuesday, Justice Department lawyer Brett Shumate told the three-judge panel of the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals that the district court’s order “upends the military chain of command. It gives state governors veto power over the president’s military orders,” per the Wall Street Journal. He argued that the conditions in Los Angeles amounted to “rebellion against the authority of the United States.”
The panel questioned Shumate’s claim that Trump’s decision to federalize the National Guard could not be challenged in court, with Judge Mark Bennett asking, “If the president or a future president simply invokes the statute, gives no reasons for doing it, provides no support for doing it, and there is nothing which would appear to a court to justify it, the court still has no role at all?”
Per Politico, the panel strongly questioned the state’s argument that Trump had not sufficiently justified his decision to send in the National Guard, and was skeptical of the state’s position that courts could question Trump’s determination that the anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles had amounted to a “rebellion” against the government.
Newsom sued the Trump administration after 4,000 members of the California National Guard were federalized to quell the violence in downtown Los Angeles that sparked over ICE operations in the area. Newsom argued that the situation in the city fell short of conditions set up under federal law that allows a president to federalize the forces, which include invasion, rebellion, or breakdown in civil order.
On Thursday, US District Judge Charles Breyer ruled in favor of California, agreeing that the situation in Los Angeles fell short of the conditions required to federalize the National Guard, and saying that Trump failed to follow a provision that requires mobilization orders be sent “through the governor.” That order has been placed on hold by the Ninth Circuit pending consideration of the appeal.
Samuel Harbourt, arguing on behalf of California, argued that the district court’s order should remain in place while litigation proceeds, and that allowing it to remain blocked would allow the Trump administration to “continue diverting thousands of guardsmen away from critical work at the state level, including wildfire prevention and drug interdiction.”
Harbourt also said that the order remaining active would allow the administration to “further escalate tensions and the risk of violence in the city of Los Angeles. And it would defy our constitutional traditions of preserving state sovereignty, of providing judicial review for the legality of executive action, safeguarding our cherished rights.”
He argued that the statute invoked by Trump required him to consult with the governor and try lesser methods before mobilizing the military. “When Congress seeks to involve government officials, it seeks to promote rather than undermine federalism and state sovereignty,” he said.
Harbourt “had difficulty distinguishing the current situation from a centuries-old Supreme Court case that the administration said gave the president broad discretion over the militia,” the Wall Street Journal reported, with Judge Jennifer Sung responding, “If we were writing on a blank slate, I would tend to agree with you.”
Sung said, however, that in the 1827 case, the Supreme Court “seemingly rejected the exact argument that you’re making.”
