A US federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to pause its deployment of National Guard troops to Washington, DC, a setback for the president’s push to send troops into cities across the nation.
US District Judge Jia Cobb temporarily suspended the deployment in a ruling on Thursday, responding to a lawsuit filed by city officials who said Trump had overstepped his authority and misused his powers by deploying the military for domestic law enforcement.
The federal government maintains special powers in Washington, but the Trump administration has taken the controversial step to mobilise armed forces in a list of states which are governed by Democratic lawmakers, despite frequent protests from state and local officials and a lack of any emergency conditions.
Cobb, in her ruling, said the president cannot deploy soldiers for “whatever reason” he wants and gave the Trump administration 21 days to appeal the order before it goes into effect. Prosecutors representing the government slammed the lawsuit that challenged the deployment as a “frivolous stunt”.
The Department of Justice lawyers, while expressing dissatisfaction over the ruling, wrote, “There is no sensible reason for an injunction unwinding this arrangement now, particularly since the District’s claims have no merit.”
Trump has also deployed troops to cities such as Los Angeles, California; Portland, Oregon; and Chicago, Illinois, in what he believes was a necessary step to free up the states from organised crime syndicates.
Meanwhile, Trump has threatened to imprison local and state officials who criticise his deployment of the military. An appeal filed in September by Washington, DC, Attorney General Brian Schwalb said that US democracy would “never be the same if these occupations are permitted to stand”.
