Federal Judge Orders Trump Officials to Be Deposed After National Troops Deployment

The state of California will be allowed to depose key Trump administration officials and seek more details about how thousands of armed troops have been used since their deployment earlier this month to Los Angeles amidst immigration raids and resulting protests.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer is the latest legal development in a case brought by California Gov. Gavin Newsom over President Donald Trump’s decision to call up 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 U.S. Marines in early June. The president argues that the troops are needed to quell protests and ensure that federal immigration laws can be enforced, while the state maintains that their presence is illegal, unnecessary and likely to provoke more violence.

In his ruling late Wednesday, Breyer denied the Trump administration’s request to transfer the case to a different federal court and found that an earlier appeals court ruling siding with the administration over the president’s authority to call up the troops does not preclude him from considering how they can be used.

That earlier appeals court ruling handed the Trump administration a big win, allowing the president to maintain control of the National Guard and keep troops in L.A. while the broader case moves forward.

Breyer said Wednesday that he will allow California to depose U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Ernesto Santacruz Jr., director of the L.A. Enforcement and Removal Operations field office, and U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Niave F. Knell.

The state can also seek information from the administration on what instructions and rules of engagement were given to the troops, what operations they have conducted in Southern California and whether the circumstances in those first days of protest “justify deployments that are untethered to protection” of federal property and personnel.

In response to Trump administration claims, Breyer wrote, “the Court has a difficult time imagining how limited written discovery on less than a month’s worth of enforcement actions could be excessive, let alone ‘unbelievably broad.’”

California filed suit shortly after Trump’s deployment of the troops. Breyer initially issued a temporary restraining order that directed Trump to hand back control of the California National Guard troops to Newsom.

But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked Breyer’s TRO within hours of his ruling, and a week later ruled that Trump “likely” acted within his authority when he invoked a rarely used legal provision that allows a president to deploy federal service members if “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”

Breyer is now considering whether to issue a separate preliminary injunction based on questions not addressed in the appeals court ruling, including whether the deployment violates the Posse Comitatus Act, a 147-year-old law that bars using the military against civilians.

The White House argued in court filings this week that since the appeals court approved Trump’s authority to call up the troops, he is allowed to decide how to use them. But in his order, Breyer wrote that those claims are premature, and noted that the administration’s reading ignores the key differences between the statute Trump used to federalize the National Guard and the Posse Comitatus Act.

“A second reason why Defendants’ argument is premature is that its success may hinge on evidence that would be gathered in the very discovery that Plaintiffs seek,” Breyer wrote. “Plaintiffs’ Posse Comitatus Act claim might remain viable if they can present evidence that Defendants are using the federalized National Guard members to enforce state law or federal law unrelated to ‘those laws’ that justified federalizing the National Guard in the first place.”