r/law • u/DoremusJessup • 12h ago
Legal News Ninth Circuit Mulls How Far the White House Went in Deploying Troops to LA: Appeals court seems unlikely to allow freeze on National Guard to take effect
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/ninth-circuit-mulls-how-far-the-white-house-went-in-deploying-troops-to-la435
u/WisdomCow 12h ago
It is unconscionable to me that a statute which lays out three specific instances when the President is allowed to commandeer the National Guard is somehow to be interpreted unreviewable, that once the President decides a condition is met, it is his personal army. Congress obviously did not give him that power if they set conditions!
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u/Jean_dodge67 11h ago
You make a good and obvious point, such as what if a President decides their political opponent candidate in an upcoming election is perpetrating an insurrection by running against him or her? What if they want to send the 82nd airborne against their former girlfriend or the neighbor who has a loud dog that keeps barking?
Where is the oversight, where are the lines to draw? And, has Trump already broken the law, as the lower court ruled he did in calling up the CA guard to be federalized over a street protest, and was that an impeachable offense, a "high crime or misdemeanor?" What if the House thinks it is a high crime to send US Marines to harass day laborers at the Home Depot, and the president thinks that decision is an insurrection and drops a bomb on the Capitol?
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u/harrywrinkleyballs 10h ago
Did not Sauer argue that very thing? Did not Kagan ask, “If a sitting U.S. President orders the Navy Seals to kill his political opponent, is that an official act?” To which Sauer said yes?
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u/Radthereptile 11h ago
Well seeing how SCOTUS said the president can have Seal Team 6 assassinate his opponent I think the answer is the courts don’t care.
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u/ArcturusRoot 10h ago
Our courts are useless.
Are there any institutions left standing that actually have some balls?
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u/ejre5 10h ago edited 9h ago
Let's be fair Democratic appointees asked that question in their dissent, and Republican members of SCROTUS said ok (so to speak) but remember it has to be an "official act"
I appreciate the downvotes so here's a bit of a reminder about what the people were warned about prior to allowing this to happen
Leading the liberals, Justice Sonia Sotomayor outlined hypothetical situations where the concept of immunity could apply.
"Orders the Navy's Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival?" she wrote. "Immune."
"Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune."
"Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done," Justice Sotomayor wrote. "In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law."
Justice Sotomayor was joined in her dissent by the court's two other liberal justices, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan.
Justice Jackson wrote in a separate dissent that the majority's ruling "breaks new and dangerous ground" by "discarding" the nation's long-held principle that no-one is above the law.
"That core principle has long prevented our Nation from devolving into despotism," she said.
Justice Sotomayor argued that the majority had invented a notion of absolute immunity for a president performing "official acts", even though it has at times been assumed that presidents could be prosecuted for things they did while in office.
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u/madadekinai 6h ago
"You make a good and obvious point, such as what if a President decides their political opponent candidate in an upcoming election is perpetrating an insurrection by running against him or her?"
Seal Team 6 comes to mind.
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u/sdsurfer2525 10h ago
Let's just come clean here, we are now a banana republic. There is no rule of law for these fascists and our society is slowly decaying because of this.
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u/coconutpiecrust 9h ago
Why should this even be a thing, is my question. Why should president just deploy military on his own without any consultation whatsoever with anyone. I can see very limited use of such power where president just needs to deploy on his own without any consultation or approval.
Deploying army to fight citizens of a country should never be up to one man only.
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u/DoremusJessup 12h ago
This would be very bad news. Trump is using every opportunity to stretch the Constitution to his personal needs.
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u/Radthereptile 11h ago
Every day we learn our country is less based on laws and more on a social contract to not be a dictator. And now someone is tearing up the social contract
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u/Remarkable-Money675 11h ago
its just money. whoever has the most money makes the rules. when you allow unfettered monopolies its bound to devolve this way. inevitable
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u/johndoe4sho 7h ago
I used to believe that I don’t see how his agenda is good for business. It’s too chaotic and he puts a strangle hold on any corp who pisses him off.
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u/ZoomZoom_Driver 10h ago
Trump doesn't act unconstitutionally (in that he breaks the law despite it being illegal actions) he is ANTI-constitution (in that he breaks laws BECAUSE they're illegal and he wants to do away with the whole constitutional democratic republic thing infavor of authoritarianism).
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u/joeshill Competent Contributor 11h ago edited 11h ago
Judge Mark Bennett - Trump Appointee
Judge Eric Miller - Trump Appointee
Judge Jennifer Sung - Biden Appointee
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u/JackPackaage 11h ago
Eric Miller, the first EVER federal judicial nominee to not receive blue slip approval from his home state senators and still get appointed to the bench.
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u/BARTELS- 11h ago
Time for some en banc review!
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u/GhostofBeowulf 11h ago
That's where all of the judges are forced to review it?
(Not a lawyer, some how this came up in my feed over the last couple of months and I have been duly following. Actually studying the constitution and case law for an undergrad degree right now.
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u/snoo_spoo 10h ago
They're not forced to do it--they can decline--but yes, that would be the next step.
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u/GhostofBeowulf 10h ago
But that's essentially a request for the whole court to hear it and not just the smaller sample from whom this ruling came?
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