Trump’s whack-a-mole militarism, part II

On Saturday, within hours of Federal District Judge Karin Immergut issuing her temporary restraining order against the federalization and deployment of Oregon National Guard in Portland, Secretary Pete “Rocks Glass” Hegseth ordered units from the California National Guard, along with extra units from the Texas Guard, to be deployed in Portland, Chicago, and elsewhere around the country.

The attorney generals of both Oregon and California went to court on Sunday, filing lawsuits to block Hegseth’s order. In an extraordinary hearing by telephone on Sunday night, Judge Immergut, for the second time in as many days, issued an order restraining the Trump administration from deploying National Guard units to Portland. This time, her order pertained to National Guard units from Texas and California. Her previous order barred Trump from federalizing the Oregon National Guard.

“I am certainly troubled by now hearing that both California and Texas National Guard are being sent into Oregon, which does appear to be in direct contravention of my order. Aren’t defendants simply circumventing my order? Why is this appropriate?” Immergut asked Deputy Assistant Attorney General Eric Hamilton.

Hamiltorn replied that Immergut’s Saturday order pertained only to the Oregon National Guard, not to units from other states, such as California and Texas. “You are missing the point,” Immergut told Hamilton, agreeing with Oregon Senior Assistant Attorney General Scott Kennedy, who argued that “It feels a little bit like we’re playing a game of rhetorical whack-a-mole here.” The lawsuit filed by Oregon asked Immergut to bar National Guard units from every other state in the Union, including Washington D.C., from deploying to Oregon.

The Trump DOJ has already appealed Immergut’s latest order to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Whacking Trump’s moles will continue in the coming days and weeks as the Trump administration seeks to get the issue before the Supreme Court, where they hope the Court will take the case on an “emergency basis” and stay Immergut’s order using its “Shadow docket” without issuing an opinion on the merits.

In her ruling on Saturday, Judge Immergut found that Trump’s order did not meet the standard necessary to use soldiers to perform law enforcement duties under 10 U.S.C. § 12406, which allows the president to federalize the National Guard to “repel invasion, suppress rebellion, or execute U.S. laws when regular forces are insufficient.” Immergut’s Saturday order held that Trump’s mobilization of the National Guard violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which bars the use of the military to perform civil law enforcement duties. Trump would have had to invoke the Insurrection Act to create an exception to that law, a complicated process that involves getting agreement from the Congress, which Trump has not attempted to do. The Insurrection Act can be used only to put down a rebellion against the U.S. government or suppress an insurrection, neither of which is happening in Portland, Chicago, or any other city in which Trump wants to deploy National Guard soldiers.

Immergut found the reasons Trump cited for deploying the National Guard in Portland were “untethered to facts.” Trump called Portland “war ravaged” in a recent Truth Social post that described the city as “burning down” and “like living in hell.” He had apparently been watching a show on Fox News that had run tape of Black Lives Matter protests against the killing of George Floyd in 2020 that showed burning cars and tear gas used to suppress the protests.

Judge Immergut dismissed Trump’s characterization of Portland and found that while recent protests had occasionally been violent, the city had sufficient civilian law enforcement forces to deal with demonstrations against federal agents working for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Trump damaged his own ability to win lawsuits against his federalization of the National Guard by posting on Truth Social that he was “going after” cities with Democratic mayors. His attempt to define street protests that are protected under the First Amendment as “rebellions” and “insurrections” is falling flat in one court after another. Now the state of Illinois has gone to court seeking to stop Trump from deploying troops to Chicago, writing in their lawsuit that “these advances in President Trump’s long-declared ‘War’ on Chicago and Illinois are unlawful and dangerous.”

Trump wants to put National Guard soldiers on the streets of cities controlled by Democrats as an intimidation tactic that seeks to accomplish political goals by pitting the Democratic Party against the forces of “law and order.” The problem he has is that masked ICE agents rounding up random people on the street and launching late-night raids on apartment buildings is very unpopular.

“The American people, regardless of where they reside, should not live under the threat of occupation by the United States military, particularly not simply because their city or state leadership has fallen out of a president’s favor,” Illinois wrote in its lawsuit today.

Trump wants to use his control of the U.S. military to get a “win” that he was unable to score in Afghanistan during his first term in office. Like his Secretary of War or Peace or Defense or Whatever It’s Called This Week, Trump is obsessed with image over performance. He doesn’t care that there was so little for the National Guard to do in Washington D.C. that they ended up raking leaves and policing the streets of trash. He just wants to see armed uniformed soldiers walking around looking tough.

The problem Trump has run up against in Portland is that one of the judges he appointed to the federal bench in that state has shown herself to be tough enough to stand up to him and his transparent bullshit. It must be driving him crazy that presidents don’t get to order federal judges around or deploy soldiers to their court rooms.

In the court room overseen by at least one female jurist in the state of Oregon, the rule of law still prevails. For how long that will hold true is a question not only for Oregon, but for the whole nation.