Listen To This Story

In a second major setback for Donald Trump’s plan to invent emergencies to grant himself more power, a federal judge on Tuesday ruled that the administration’s use of the military in Los Angeles was illegal and unnecessary.

In a scathing opinion, US District Court Judge Charles Breyer accused Trump of wanting to create “a national police force with the President as its chief.”

He ruled that the troops the administration dispatched to Los Angeles performed tasks that are forbidden under the Posse Comitatus Act, which limits the use of the military for domestic purposes.

“The evidence at trial established that Defendants systematically used armed soldiers (whose identity was often obscured by protective armor) and military vehicles to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engage in crowd control, and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles,” wrote Breyer, who was appointed by Bill Clinton, in his 52-page decision.

He also left no doubt that the presence of the troops was unnecessary.

“There were indeed protests in Los Angeles, and some individuals engaged in violence,” Breyer wrote. “Yet there was no rebellion, nor was civilian law enforcement unable to respond to the protests and enforce the law.”

His assessment stands in stark contrast to the administration’s absurd claims that Los Angeles was teetering on the brink of an insurrection, or that the city would no longer be standing if Trump had not intervened.

The statement of the facts as laid out in the decision shows that the protests were limited and largely non-violent.

However, that did not stop Trump from trying to grant himself extraordinary powers, as he has done repeatedly in his second term.

Just last week, a federal appeals court ruled that most of the tariffs he imposed in response to an invented economic emergency were also illegal.

The ruling comes at a particularly bad time for the administration because it has not made a secret out of its desire to also deploy troops to other cities run by Democrats.

Conversely, it is a major victory for California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who has emerged as one of the president’s leading antagonists.

“Today, the court sided with democracy and the Constitution. No president is a king — not even Trump — and no president can trample a state’s power to protect its people,” Newsom stated following the ruling, which the administration is likely to appeal. “Trump’s attempt to use federal troops as his personal police force is illegal, authoritarian, and must be stopped in every courtroom across this country.”

It is true that the decision likely has greater consequences in other cities than in Los Angeles, where only 300 troops remain.

Breyer ruled that these do not have to be withdrawn, but rather that their activities have to comply with the Posse Comitatus Act. For example, they would be allowed to protect federal buildings.

In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.