A federal appeals court allowed President Donald Trump’s use of the D.C. National Guard troops to continue while the case plays out.
“Because the District of Columbia is a federal district created by Congress, rather than a constitutionally sovereign entity like the fifty States, the Defendants appear on this early record likely to prevail on the merits of their argument that the President possesses a unique power within the District the seat of the federal government—to mobilize the Guard under 32 U.S.C. § 502(f),” the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit wrote. “It also appears likely that the D.C. Code independently authorizes the deployment of the D.C. Guard.”
Without a stay, the court further explained, “the preliminary relief is likely to result in a profound level of disruption to the lives of thousands of service members who have been deployed for four months already, and the President’s order implicates a strong and distinctive interest in the protection of federal governmental functions and property within the Nation’s capital.”
Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao separately wrote that they have “never recognized that the District possesses an independent sovereignty that can give rise to an Article III injury from actions of the federal government. Such an injury is likely untenable as a matter of first principles and finds no support in our precedent or historical practice.”
The ruling stays a November 20 decision by U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb, who ordered that the National Guard deployment be paused.
