SACRAMENTO — President Trump said Wednesday that he is removing the National Guard from the Democrat-led cities of Los Angeles, Portland, Ore., and Chicago, following a Supreme Court ruling that cast doubt on the administration’s legal theory for using the troops in domestic law enforcement operations.
The president, however, said the decision was based solely on what he described as “greatly reduced” crime in those cities and left open the possibility of future federal intervention. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office countered Trump’s reasoning for removing troops in Los Angeles, saying the decision was due to California’s recent victories in court, including a ruling Wednesday returning control of the Guard to the state.
“I’m glad President Trump has finally admitted defeat: we’ve said all along the federalization of the National Guard in California is illegal,” Newsom said in a statement. “I direct California National Guard leadership to work expeditiously to return state service members home to be with their families as soon as possible following their demobilization from federal service.”
The back-and-forth followed a brief filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on Tuesday in which Justice Department lawyers said they formally withdrew a request to keep the troops under federal control while the appeal proceeds. A subsequent order Wednesday from the appeals court returned control of the California National Guard to Newsom.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court handed Trump a temporary defeat, blocking him from deploying the National Guard in Chicago. In their ruling, the justices said the power to deploy troops domestically is only given to the president in “exceptional” circumstances.
The decision was seen as a turning point in a contentious legal fight over Trump’s use of state National Guard troops, which the president said was necessary to quell unrest over immigration enforcement. Justice Department lawyers had argued in court that once federalized, Guard troops could remain under the president’s command indefinitely and that courts had no authority to review their deployment.
California officials filed their lawsuit in June after Trump mobilized nearly 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles over Newsom’s objections, arguing the deployment was “unlawful and unprecedented.” Most troops were sent home in August. Court records show roughly 300 California troops remained under federal control, including 100 of whom were still active in Los Angeles as of earlier this month.
Newsom said in September that Trump’s decision to deploy troops to Los Angeles amounted to costly political theater that saddled taxpayers with a nearly $120-million bill. That price tag was tallied from estimates provided by the California National Guard, Newsom’s office said.
In mid-December, video reviewed by The Times showed dozens of troops under Trump’s command quietly leaving the Roybal Federal Building downtown in the middle of the night following an appellate court’s order to decamp. That facility had been patrolled by armed soldiers since June.
Earlier this month, a federal judge in the Northern District of California ruled that the president had illegally seized control of California’s National Guard during protests over immigration enforcement. That order is now back in effect after the 9th Circuit’s Wednesday order.
U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer rejected the administration’s argument that once federalized, Guard units could remain under presidential control indefinitely. He warned that such a theory would upend the constitutional balance between state and federal power.
The Los Angeles case is part of a broader, high-stakes legal battle over the president’s authority to deploy armed forces inside U.S. cities. Similar disputes involving Guard deployments in Oregon and Illinois are moving through the courts, with several judges, including conservative appointees, expressing skepticism about claims that such decisions are beyond judicial review.
Members of Congress have also begun scrutinizing the deployments, raising concerns about civil liberties and the growing use of military forces in civilian settings.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said earlier this year that Los Angeles would have “burned down,” if not for the National Guard deployment.
Trump’s message on Wednesday on his social media platform Truth Social echoed those claims.
“Portland, Los Angeles, and Chicago were GONE if it weren’t for the Federal Government stepping in,” Trump wrote. “We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again – Only a question of time!”
But the Guardsmen were only stationed to protect federal buildings in downtown and West L.A. and rarely moved into city streets. Despite administration claims, violent crime and property crime fell about 8% in the city this year, LAPD records show.
Although the protests caused significant property damage in a small section of downtown L.A., federal prosecutors have struggled to get indictments against demonstrators accused of attacking federal agents.
Earlier this month, a Times review of alleged assaults on federal officers in a number of cities where Trump either dispatched the National Guard or threatened to — including L.A., Chicago and Portland — showed the majority of the incidents resulted in no injuries to officers.
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta celebrated Tuesday’s filing with the appeals court, saying his office “worked nights and weekends to defend the Constitution and bring about an end of the President’s unlawful overreach of executive power.”
“For six months, California National Guard troops have been used as political pawns by a President desperate to be king,” Bonta said in a statement. “From the political display in MacArthur Park to their unlawful participation in indiscriminate immigration raids, the militaristic deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles streets has left lasting scars in Angeleno communities. There is a reason our founders decided military and civilian affairs must be kept separate; a reason that our military is, by design, apolitical.”
