California Governor Gavin Newsom has formally requested Trump administration officials to rescind the order to deploy the National Guard and return control of the force to California, calling the initial order unlawful and “intentionally designed to inflame the situation.”
“I have formally requested the Trump Administration rescind their unlawful deployment of troops in Los Angeles county and return them to my command,” Newsom wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “We didn’t have a problem until Trump got involved. This is a serious breach of state sovereignty — inflaming tensions while pulling resources from where they’re actually needed. Rescind the order. Return control to California.”
The command structure allows the president to issue those orders. The president’s justification for issuing those orders is illegal; the orders themselves are not.
The command structure also constitutionally empowers Newsom to fire the commissioned and non-commissioned officers of the California National Guard, effectively disbanding their units.
I’m betting that California has some emergency provision allowing the governor to deputize these individuals into the California State Police.
I think Trump has done enough here to actually get himself convicted by the senate.
The one follows the other.
The president can not order the military to do peacekeeping operations on US soil without a justification to do so. If the justification to do so is illegal, then so is the act of ordering it.
That determination can only be authoritatively be made by the courts. Until the courts say otherwise, the president’s order is presumed lawful, and the subordinate officers are compelled to obey it.
The order is one that the president is allowed to make in the specific circumstances described in the order. If the courts determine those circumstances are present, the order will have been determined to be lawful.
Newsom’s authority is limited to the “appointment of officers”. He can functionally disband the California National Guard, but he can’t otherwise countermand the president’s order.
This is a roundabout way of making the point I was trying to make.
Newsome said it was unlawful. If it is, then he should be doing more than make social media posts about it.
He wasn’t using the social media post as his official action. He was announcing to the public that he had taken official action (thru the proper Dept. Of Defense channels).