A federal judge ruled that Donald Trump acted illegally when he commandeered the California national guard and ordered thousands of troops to Los Angeles amid protests over immigration raids. The troops return to the control of California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, at noon on Friday.
The Defense secretary said he’d comply with a Supreme Court order blocking Trump’s domestic deployment, but did not commit to the other courts.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday that he would obey a Supreme Court order to remove troops from Los Angeles but declined to show similar deference to other courts considering the issue.
The Pentagon chief initially deflected when asked at a House Armed Services Committee hearing whether he would abide by a court’s decision if it determined President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and Marines was unlawful.
“What I can say is we should not have local judges determining foreign policy or national security policy for the country,” Hegseth said.
But the Defense secretary later clarified that he would obey a decision from the high court.
“We’re not here to defy a Supreme Court ruling,” he said.
The comments mirror other officials who have criticized court rulings that go against the Trump administration, often directing withering criticism at lower-court judges while vowing deference to the justices.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/12/hegseth-marines-los-angeles-00402794
Donald Trump has just been ordered by a federal judge to “return control of the California National Guard to the Governor of the State of California forthwith.”
In an order handed down Thursday just a couple of hours after a pitched hearing in San Francisco between Department of Justice lawyers and Golden State attorneys, Judge Charles Breyer awarded Gavin Newsom the temporary restraining order he sought over Trump’s federalization of the California National Guard on June 7 after protests over ICE raids of undocumented immigrants in and around L.A.
“At this early stage of the proceedings, the Court must determine whether the President followed the congressionally mandated procedure for his actions,” the judge wrote in a 36-page order this evening. “He did not.” The Bill Clinton appointed judge added: “His actions were illegal — both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
Newsom and the state Attorney General first filed suit against Trump, Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth and others in the administration on June 9. The gist of their argument was that the president overstepped his authority when he dispatched National Guard troops to the region to respond to protests of ICE immigration raids late last week. The governor said the president violated the law by not consulting with him first before the deployment.
On June 11, Newsom upped the ante and demanded a TRO to halt the troop movement and Trump’s brazen authoritarian tactics ASAP
Having already warned on “a monarchy” in the hearing earlier today, Breyer worried that “Defendants’ actions also threaten to chill legitimate First Amendment expression.” To that, and with the overriding Constitutional and jurisdictional issues at play, he laid out exactly what’s next for Newsom and Trump with this halting of military deployment to America’s second-largest city:
For the foregoing reasons, the Court GRANTS Plaintiffs’ motion for a temporary restraining order:
Defendants are temporarily ENJOINED from deploying members of the California National Guard in Los Angeles.
Defendants are DIRECTED to return control of the California National Guard to Governor Newsom.
The Court further STAYS this order until noon on June 13, 2025.
Plaintiffs are ORDERED to post a nominal bond of $100 within 24 hours. The bond shall be filed in the Clerk’s Office and be deposited into the registry of the Court. If said bond is not posted by the aforementioned date and time, this Order shall be dissolved.
Defendants are further ORDERED TO SHOW CAUSE why a preliminary injunction should not issue. A hearing on this order to show cause will be held on June 20, 2025 at 10 a.m. Plaintiffs’ moving papers shall be filed no later than June 16, 2025; Defendants’ opposition shall be due no later than June 18, 2025, and Plaintiffs’ reply shall be due on June 19, 2025.
Whether or not this White House complies with Breyer’s order is another matter.
https://deadline.com/2025/06/trump-court-ruling-troops-la-newsom-1236432420
Controversy over former President Joe Biden’s use of an autopen to issue presidential pardons has taken a new turn.
United States Pardon Attorney Ed Martin wrote on social media platform X, “The integrity of the American Pardon system requires that we examine the Biden pardons and who did what.”
“We will get the bottom of it.
“Count on us,” he concluded.
Last month, President Donald Trump shared an edited image of the knuckles of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident with protected status wrongfully sent to a Salvadoran detention facility. The photo showed “MS13” apparently added above his knuckle tattoos, even though other photos of his hand did not have that text. Last week, I had a chance to ask Homeland Security Security Kristi [Bimbo #2] Noem if she had investigated how an edited image came into the president’s hands. Not only did she refuse to answer, she barely acknowledged that the image was edited.
Politics is hyperbole. I know that voters have become inured to politicians saying, “The opposing party is the end of the country as we know it!” But what we are witnessing today is like nothing we have seen since the founding of this country, almost 250 years ago. Every warning light on democracy’s dashboard now flashes red.
Since taking the Oval Office, Trump has never been coy about his ambitions to rule as a dictator rather than serve as a president, accountable to the people who put him there. In just the past few months, he’s laid out the groundwork to jail innocent people and silence his political enemies, all under the guise of “law and order.” Perhaps in just a few months, Trump’s authoritarian ambitions will be realized. And it will be like how Hemingway described how one grows broke: “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”Just last week, Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff for policy and one of his longest-serving enablers, said the White House was “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus for immigrants.
Let’s be clear: Suspending the constitutional right to challenge unlawful detention is not some academic exercise or abstract policy debate, as many on the right may claim. Miller is deadly serious. There is no ambiguity. Equally explicit is the United States Constitution: Only Congress can suspend habeas corpus, and only in cases of actual rebellion or invasion.
Suspending habeas corpus is the move of dictators and despots.
Last month, President Donald Trump shared an edited image of the knuckles of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident with protected status wrongfully sent to a Salvadoran detention facility. The photo showed “MS13” apparently added above his knuckle tattoos, even though other photos of his hand did not have that text. Last week, I had a chance to ask Homeland Security Security Kristi Noem [Bimbo #2] if she had investigated how an edited image came into the president’s hands. Not only did she refuse to answer, she barely acknowledged that the image was edited.
…
The groundwork for jailing the innocent is being laid right now — not behind closed doors, but out in the open.
First, Trump appointed Kash Patel as FBI director, an unqualified podcaster who published a book listing names of Trump’s enemies who should be imprisoned. I didn’t make the top 60; rather, I was mentioned in the foreword to Patel’s list as a legislator who should be targeted.
Next, in Trump’s first hours as president, rather than issuing executive orders that would lower consumer costs, he pardoned or commuted the sentence of every Jan. 6 criminal. A man willing to free hundreds of political allies seems more than willing to jail his political enemies.
Accordingly, last month, Trump directed his attorney general to investigate Christopher Krebs, former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and Miles Taylor, former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security. Krebs made the mistake of declaring the 2020 election the most secure in history. Taylor had the courage to organize other concerned Trump national security officials to bring to light Trump’s constitutional crimes.
And Trump demonstrated he’s willing to tell any lie to justify jailing anyone — which brings us back to Abrego Garcia. In April, the Trump administration admitted in court that it had mistakenly sent Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.
Every court that’s heard Abrego Garcia’s appeal — including the Supreme Court — has ordered Trump to facilitate his return to the United States. When asked about the case, Trump boasted he “could” return Abrego Garcia, but he “won’t.” To justify the man’s imprisonment, Trump has pointed to the altered image.
Federal agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement carried out a warrantless raid on Thursday targeting a local establishment in Newark, New Jersey, according to Newark Mayor Ras Baraka—who decried the move as an “an egregious act” in violation of the U.S. constitution.
Federal agents detained both undocumented residents and citizens, including a U.S. military veteran, Baraka said in a statement Thursday.
The local outlet PIX11 reported that ICE agents targeted the Ocean Seafood Depot, a wholesale seafood distributor. Store owner Luis Janota told the outlet that three people were taken into custody, including a Puerto Rican employee who is a military veteran. People from Puerto Rico have U.S. citizenship.
https://www.rawstory.com/newark-mayor-decries-egregious-warrantless-ice-raid
The Department of Justice sued Colorado and Denver on Friday for allegedly interfering with federal efforts to enforce immigration laws, the latest attempt by the Trump administration to crack down on what some call sanctuary cities and policies.
The lawsuit claims the state and its most populous city, Denver, have passed “sanctuary laws” violating the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
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There is no strict definition for sanctuary policies or sanctuary cities, but the terms generally describe limited local cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE enforces U.S. immigration laws nationwide but seeks state and local help, particularly for large-scale deportations, and requests that police and sheriffs alert ICE to people it wants to deport and hold them until federal officers take custody.
