The Trump administration’s latest potential use of the military on Americans in Democratic-led areas was met with a court challenge over the weekend, when lawyers filed a lawsuit against what they called the federal government’s “patently unlawful” troop deployment in Portland, Oregon.
The federal complaint, filed Sunday, cited a memorandum from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that called 200 members of the Oregon National Guard into federal service. The memo followed a social media post on Saturday in which President Donald Trump told Hegseth “to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists,” and that the president is “authorizing Full Force, if necessary.”
In their complaint, state and city officials called Trump’s statement “nothing more than baseless, wildly hyperbolic pretext.” They added that the federal government “infringed on Oregon’s sovereign power to manage its own law enforcement activity and National Guard resource.” They also noted that Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat, had said that the state “does not want military troops and that public safety will be handled by local law enforcement.”
In their complaint, state and city officials called Trump’s statement “nothing more than baseless, wildly hyperbolic pretext.”
Among their legal arguments is violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, which broadly restricts using the armed forces for domestic law enforcement. Earlier this month, a federal judge cited the act in ruling that the administration broke the law in its use of the military in Los Angeles.
In their complaint, state and city officials asked a federal judge in Portland to block Hegseth and the Defense Department from calling Oregon National Guard members into federal service, deploying them in Oregon or taking any other similar action in the state. The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Michael Simon, an Obama appointee.
On Monday, state and city officials followed up their complaint with a motion for a temporary restraining order. In it, they echoed points from their complaint while pressing for immediate court intervention, “to protect their sovereignty, retain control over local law enforcement and public safety, and prevent unnecessary disruption to Oregon’s largest city.” They explained that they filed the suit “to protect the basic structure of American federalism from an alarming intrusion that was, until the events in Los Angeles just months ago, unprecedented.” The Trump administration will have an opportunity to respond in court. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration’s legal cases.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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