#district judge charles breyer

[star-pound-star]

Hegseth won’t commit to obeying courts on Marines in Los Angeles - POLITICO

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.

Trump has ordered the Pentagon to deploy 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to Los Angeles to protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel in response to mass deportation protests. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has said the troops are not necessary, is suing to remove them.

The Trump administration, in a filing Wednesday, urged a federal judge to reject the lawsuit, calling it a “crass political stunt.”

The matter is pending before U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, who has an emergency hearing scheduled Thursday afternoon. Breyer declined Newsom’s request to immediately block Hegseth from using troops to support immigration arrests in Los Angeles.

The issue marked a flashpoint during the third budget hearing this week for Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine, which ranged from Ukraine aid to Hegseth’s efforts to root out diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the department.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) repeatedly pressed Hegseth on whether he would follow a court ruling. “You’re not willing to say you would respect those decisions?” Khanna asked.

Hegseth replied: “What I’m saying is local district judges shouldn’t make foreign policy.”

Newsom reposted a video of the exchange on social media platform X. “This is not normal,” he said.

If Breyer sides with Newsom, the administration would likely appeal any order to limit the deployment to a California appeals court and then to the Supreme Court.

The Defense secretary, in separate congressional testimony on Wednesday, suggested the administration could deploy troops elsewhere to assist in roundups and deportations. At that hearing, he wasn’t able to immediately cite the legal justification for the deployments.

[reasonsforhope]

A federal judge on Thursday [June 12, 2025] blocked the Trump administration from deploying members of the California National Guard in Los Angeles and ordered President Trump to return control to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer found that California officials are likely to succeed in their challenge to the president's decision to federalize members of the National Guard in response to protests in Los Angeles, and granted their request to block his use of the forces to assist immigration agents during raids.

"His actions were illegal — both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution," Breyer wrote of Mr. Trump in a 36-page decision. "He must therefore return control of the California National Guard to the Governor of the State of California forthwith."

The judge said Mr. Trump circumvented Newsom when he called the California National Guard into federal service, and therefore did not follow the procedural requirement laid out by Congress. He put his decision on hold until noon Friday. The Justice Department swiftly notified the court it is appealing the order, which it did later Thursday night, asking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to intervene. 

"The National Guard will come back under my authority by noon tomorrow [Friday June 13th]," Newsom told reporters in a news briefing in San Francisco Thursday evening. "The National Guard will be redeployed to what they were doing before Donald Trump commandeered them."     

"We're gratified," Newsom said. "Today is a big day for the Constitution of the United States, for our democracy. And I hope it's the beginning of a new day in this country where we push back against overreach, we push back against these authoritarian tendencies of a president that has pushed the boundaries, pushed the limit, but no longer can push this state around any longer."  

Breyer issued his decision hours after holding a hearing in San Francisco, which marked the first test of Mr. Trump's decision to place more than 4,000 members of the California National Guard under federal control and send 700 active-duty Marines to Los Angeles...

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass imposed an 8 p.m. curfew on Tuesday and Wednesday. The Los Angeles Police Department said there have been at least 400 arrests since Saturday stemming from protests and other criminal activity in the downtown area.

Breyer's order only covers National Guard members, and he had indicated during the hearing that concerns about the potential actions of the Marines who have been sent to Los Angeles are so far speculative.

During the proceedings, Breyer at times appeared uncomfortable with the assertion from Justice Department lawyer Brett Shumate that courts cannot review whether Mr. Trump's decision to call in the National Guard complies with Title 10.

"It's not that a leader can simply say something and it becomes it," he said. "How is that any different than what a monarchist does?"

The judge continued: "This country was founded in response to a monarchy and the Constitution is a document of limitations … and an enunciation of rights."

Title 10 lays out three circumstances under which the National Guard can be called into federal service: when the U.S. is invaded or in danger of invasion by a foreign nation; when there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the U.S.; or when the president is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws.

The measure then states the president "may call into federal service members and units of the National Guard of any state in such numbers as he considers necessary to repel the invasion, suppress the rebellion or execute those laws." It says orders "shall be issued through" the governor...

In his decision, Breyer wrote that the protests in Los Angeles "fall far short" of rebellion, as Mr. Trump claimed in his memorandum invoking Title 10. The administration, Breyer said, did not identify a "violent, armed, organized, open and avowed uprising against the government as a whole." 

"The definition of rebellion is unmet," Breyer wrote. "Moreover, the court is troubled by the implication inherent in defendants' argument that protest against the federal government, a core civil liberty protected by the First Amendment, can justify a finding of rebellion."

In his remarks Thursday, Newsom said, "Clearly there's no invasion, there's no rebellion, it's absurd." ...

Nicholas Green, a lawyer with the state of California, said Mr. Trump's move to deploy the National Guard to Los Angeles marks an "expansive, dangerous conception of federal executive power." He said that the governor's office had received information that 140 Marines will replace and relieve National Guard members in Los Angeles within the next 24 hours....

During testimony on Capitol Hill, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was asked whether he would abide by the judge's decision on the president's use of military forces in Los Angeles in response to the protests. Hegseth declined to definitively say and instead criticized federal judges.

-via CBS News, June 12, 2025

--

Note: Spoke too soon. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has sided with the Trump administration and granted a temporary administrative stay of the order until a hearing scheduled for June 17th. HATE THIS.

[batboyblog]

A Federal Judge declared that Trump violated the law, and the Tenth Amendment, when he federalized the California National Guard without Governor Newsom's consent and he has to hand control back to the governor.

The judge as it happens is former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer's younger brother District Judge Charles Breyer.

[truth-has-a-liberal-bias]

A federal appeals court late Thursday paused a ruling that required President Donald Trump to return control of members of California’s National Guard to the state.

Senior U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer had ruled that Trump unlawfully federalized thousands of members of California’s National Guard and must return control of the troops to the state by mid-day Friday. But the order from the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals puts that on pause.

Breyer’s ruling, nevertheless, is a significant win for Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who sued Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier this week after the president called the troops into federal service in the wake of protests in the Los Angeles area over Trump’s hardline immigration policies. [...]

[mariacallous]

The president can seize control of states’ National Guard units whenever he sees fit — even during peacetime, and even to simply back up Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents working to meet daily arrest quotas, a Justice Department lawyer argued Tuesday.

“That would be the president’s decision, based on all of the facts available to him,” Brett Shumate, the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Division, said when presented with that specific hypothetical scenario. Shumate was arguing at a court hearing about the fate of a temporary restraining order that would have briefly paused President Donald Trump’s federalization of California National Guard soldiers at anti-immigration enforcement protests in Los Angeles, but which the appeals court has blocked for now.

The brazen assertion of presidential power showed just how far the Trump administration is going to empower the president — and hints at what the president might do next.

Joseph Nunn, a counsel at the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program who focuses on the U.S. military’s domestic activities, told HuffPost after Tuesday’s hearing that the administration had offered an “unbelievably maximalist” position on Trump’s authority to use the military domestically. The stance, he said, was “completely incompatible with American civic traditions.”

The president’s deployment of thousands of National Guard troops and hundreds of Marines in California is the latest example of Trump working to erode a long-standing tradition that keeps the military from being used for domestic law enforcement. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 says the military can’t be used in that way, outside of specific exceptions like invocations of the Insurrection Act, which Trump hasn’t used.

California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, has sued over Trump’s mobilization of the state’s troops, and U.S. District Court Judge Charles R. Breyer sided with the governor last week, saying Trump’s actions had been “illegal” and ordering him to cede control of the state’s Guard back to Newsom. The Trump administration quickly appealed, and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals put the lower court’s decision on ice, keeping the soldiers in Trump’s control. (Breyer is holding another hearing Friday about a potential longer-term pause of Trump’s federalization.)

Trump has threatened to deploy ICE for raids in major cities across the country, and the DOJ’s argument this week shows he thinks troops could come along.

And, notably, the memo Trump used to federalize California’s National Guard doesn’t say anything about Los Angeles or California specifically. Rather, it applies to any “locations where protests against these [federal law enforcement] functions are occurring or are likely to occur based on current threat assessments and planned operations.”

That memo’s language was “unprecedented in American history,” Nunn said. Even Abraham Lincoln’s invocation of the Insurrection Act at the outbreak of the Civil War applied only to Confederate states.

“The last executive to claim such a completely geographically open-ended authority to use the military domestically for law enforcement was King George,” Nunn added.

[mtnman451]

News of The Day 6/11/25:

Governor "Hair Gel" loses again and again!

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article307753500.html

[seymour-butz-stuff]

A federal judge late Thursday ruled that the federalization of parts of California’s National Guard by President Donald Trump was “illegal,” and ordered Trump to return control of the Guard to state Gov. Gavin Newsom “forthwith.” But Judge Charles Breyer stayed his temporary restraining order from taking effect until 3 p.m. ET on Friday to allow the Trump administration to appeal his decision. The administration promptly did just that, asking the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to block Breyer’s ruling from taking effect. Trump, over the past week, had federalized 4,000 members of the California National Guard, and mobilized another approximately 700 U.S. Marines to respond to protests in Los Angeles against federal immigration enforcement actions. Newsom and California’s attorney general sued to reverse Trump’s federalization of the Guard without the consent of the governor, the first time in U.S. history a president had taken such an action. Breyer’s order came hours after a hearing held in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, where he sharply questioned lawyers for the federal government on Trump’s rationale and authority for the move. At one point, the judge said, “We live in response to a monarchy,” noting that there is a difference between the president and King George III, the British monarch on the throne at the time of the American Revolution. “At this early stage of the proceedings, the Court must determine whether the President followed the congressionally mandated procedure for his actions. He did not,” Breyer wrote in his order. “His actions were illegal — both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution,” the judge wrote. “He must therefore return control of the California National Guard to the Governor of the State of California forthwith.”

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Chris Geidner at Law Dork:

A federal judge on Thursday evening ruled that President Donald Trump’s weekend order activating the California National Guard was issued illegally because it did not follow the required procedures. As such, Judge Charles Breyer ordered that Trump must “return control of the California National Guard“ to California Gov. Gavin Newsom “forthwith.” The “forthwith,” however, came with a caveat — as Breyer, the younger brother of retired Justice Stephen Breyer, stayed his temporary restraining order ruling until noon Pacific Time Friday. To that end, the Justice Department nearly immediately filed a notice that it was appealing the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. An emergency motion for a stay pending appeal was filed before 7 p.m. PT. [UPDATE, 11:35 p.m. ET: By 8:30 p.m. PT, a Ninth Circuit panel had issued an "administrative stay" of Breyer's TRO through at least Tuesday — which would therefore mean Trump's activation of the California National Guard would remain in effect over the weekend absent a further court order.

The panel is made up of Judges Bennett and Miller, both Trump appointees, and Judge Jennifer Sung, a Biden appointee. Minutes after the panel filed its administrative stay order, California filed its opposition to DOJ’s request. Notably, one of their arguments was the “serious questions” regarding whether the appeals court even has jurisdiction over a purported appeal of a TRO.] The decision from Breyer — a Clinton appointee to the Northern District of California — came a few hours after a hearing on Thursday on the temporary restraining order request in the lawsuit filed by California Attorney General Rob Bonta earlier this week with Newsom as the lead plaintiff in the case.

Judge Charles Breyer issued a ruling in Newsom v. Trump that Tyrant 47’s activation of the National Guard in LA was illegal. However, a 9th Circuit 3-judge panel issued a TRO, meaning that Trump’s NG activation is still in effect, barring further court orders.

See Also:

AP, via HuffPost: Appeals Court Pauses Ruling For Trump To Return Control Of National Guard To California

The Guardian: Trump keeps national guards in LA for now as appeals court puts brakes on ban

[minimarketonlineltd]

A U.S. appeals court let Donald Trump retain control on Thursday of California's National Guard while the state's Democratic governor proceeds with a lawsuit challenging the Republican president's use of the troops to quell protests in Los Angeles. Trump's decision to send troops into Los Angeles prompted a national debate about the use of the military on U.S. soil and inflamed political tension in the country's second most-populous city. On Thursday, a three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals extended its pause on U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer's June 12 ruling that Trump had unlawfully called the National Guard into federal service.

[buzzbeat]

California judge struck the threat of dismissal after the dead end of the Trump National Guard

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! First on Fox: A republican legislator files articles against a judge who temporarily blocked the control of President Donald Trump on the National Guard in California during this month riots in Los Angeles. Randy Fine representative, R-Fla., Departs a resolution on Friday to withdraw the American district judge Charles Breyer from the bench. He told…

[home-inspiration-blog]

Trump administration may have to hand over documents related to its use of troops in Southern California

The Trump administration may need to hand over photos, internal reports and other documents related to its use of the California National Guard and military in Southern California amid its ongoing immigration enforcement efforts. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer is considering a discovery request from Gov. Gavin Newsom in the continuing legal battle over President Donald Trump’s federalization…

[fayannetbuzz]

‘Occupation’ or fighting ‘rebellion’? 9th Circuit weighs Trump’s case for troops in L.A.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments Tuesday questioning both President Trump’s decision to deploy federal troops to Los Angeles and the court’s right to review it, teeing up what is likely to be a fierce new challenge to presidential power in the U.S. Supreme Court.

A panel of three judges — two appointed by President Trump, one by President Biden — pressed hard on the administration’s central assertion that the president had nearly unlimited discretion to deploy the military on American streets.

But they also appeared to cast doubt on last week’s ruling from a federal judge in San Francisco that control of the National Guard must immediately return to California authorities. A pause on that decision remains in effect while the judges deliberate, with a decision expected as soon as this week.

“The crucial question ... is whether the judges seem inclined to accept Trump’s argument that he alone gets to decide if the statutory requirements for nationalizing the California national guard are met,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law.

The questions at the heart of the case test the limits of presidential authority, which the U.S. Supreme Court has vastly expanded in recent years.

When one of the Trump appointees, Judge Mark J. Bennett of Honolulu, asked if a president could call up the National Guard in all 50 states and the District of Columbia in response to unrest in California and be confident that decision was “entirely unreviewable” by the courts, Assistant Atty. Gen. Brett Shumate replied unequivocally: “Yes.”

“That couldn’t be any more clear,” Shumate said. “The president gets to decide how many forces are necessary to quell rebellion and execute federal laws.”

“It’s not for the court to abuse its authority just because there may be hypothetical cases in the future where the president might have abused his authority,” he added.

California Deputy Solicitor General Samuel Harbourt said that interpretation was dangerously broad and risked harm to American democratic norms if upheld.

“We don’t have a problem with according the president some level of appropriate deference,” Harbourt said. “The problem ... is that there’s really nothing to defer to here.”

The Trump administration said it deployed troops to L.A. to ensure immigration enforcement agents could make arrests and conduct deportations, arguing demonstrations downtown against that activity amounted to “rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”

State and local officials said the move was unjustified and nakedly political — an assessment shared by Senior District Judge Charles R. Breyer, whose ruling last week would have handed control of most troops back to California leaders.

Breyer heard the challenge in California’s Northern District, but saw his decision appealed and put on hold within hours by the 9th Circuit.

The appellate court’s stay left the Trump administration in command of thousands of National Guard troops and hundreds of Marines in L.A. through the weekend, when demonstrators flooded streets as part of the nationwide “No Kings” protests.

The events were largely peaceful, with just more than three dozen demonstrators arrested in L.A. Saturday and none on Sunday — compared to more than 500 taken into custody during the unrest of the previous week.

Hundreds of Marines still stationed in L.A.”will provide logistical support” processing ICE detainees, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement Tuesday. Under last week’s executive order, National Guard troops will remain deployed for 60 days.

Arguing before the appellate panel Tuesday, Shumate said the military presence was necessary to defend against ongoing “mob violence” in L.A. streets.

“Federal personnel in Los Angeles continue to face sustained mob violence in Los Angeles,” the administration’s lawyer said. “Unfortunately, local authorities are either unable or unwilling to protect federal personnel and property.”

Harbourt struck back at those claims.

“[Violence] is of profound concern to the leaders of the state,” the California deputy solicitor general said. “But the state is dealing with it.”

However, the three judges seemed less interested in the facts on the ground in Los Angeles than in the legal question of who gets to decide how to respond.

“In the normal course, the level of resistance encountered by federal law enforcement officers is not zero, right?” Judge Eric D. Miller of Seattle asked. “So does that mean ... you could invoke this whenever?”

While the appellate court weighed those arguments, California officials sought to bolster the state’s case in district court in filings Monday and early Tuesday.

[cavenewstimestoday]

Judge asks if troops in Los Angeles are violating Posse Comitatus Act

SAN FRANCISCO — California’s challenge of the Trump administration’s military deployment in Los Angeles returned to a federal courtroom in San Francisco on Friday for a brief hearing after an appeals court handed President Donald Trump a key procedural win. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer put off issuing any additional rulings and instead asked for briefings from both sides by noon Monday on…

[mariacallous]

Soon after Elon Musk took control of Twitter, now called X, the platform faced a massive problem: Advertisers were fleeing. But that, the company alleges, was someone else’s fault. On Thursday that argument went before a federal judge, who seemed skeptical of the company's allegations that a nonprofit’s research tracking hate speech on X had compromised user security, and that the group was responsible for the platform’s loss of advertisers.

The dispute began in July when X filed suit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit that tracks hate speech on social platforms and had warned that the platform was seeing an increase in hateful content. Musk’s company alleged that CCDH’s reports cost it millions in advertising dollars by driving away business. It also claimed that the nonprofit’s research had violated the platform’s terms of service and endangered users’ security by scraping posts using the login of another nonprofit, the European Climate Foundation.

In response, CCDH filed a motion to dismiss the case, alleging that it was an attempt to silence a critic of X with burdensome litigation using what’s known as a “strategic lawsuit against public participation,” or SLAPP.

On Thursday, lawyers for CCDH and X went before Judge Charles Breyer in the Northern California District Court for a hearing to decide whether X’s case against the nonprofit will be allowed to proceed. The outcome of the case could set a precedent for exactly how far billionaires and tech companies can go to silence their critics. “This is really a SLAPP suit disguised as a contractual suit,” says Alejandra Caraballo, clinical instructor at Harvard Law School's Cyberlaw Clinic.

Unforeseen Harms

X alleges that the CCDH used the European Climate Foundation’s login to a social network listening tool called Brandwatch, which has a license to access X data through the company’s API. In the hearing Thursday, X’s attorneys argued that CCDH’s use of the tool had caused the company to spend time and money investigating the scraping, for which it also needed to be compensated on top of payback for how the nonprofit’s report spooked advertisers.

Judge Breyer pressed X’s attorney, Jonathan Hawk, on that claim, questioning how scraping posts that were publicly available could violate users’ safety or the security of their data. “If [CCDH] had scraped and discarded the information, or scraped that number and never issued a report, or scraped and never told anybody about it. What would be your damages?” Breyer asked X’s legal team.

Breyer also pointed out that it would have been impossible for anyone agreeing to Twitter's terms of service in 2019, as the European Climate Foundation did when it signed up for Brandwatch, years before Musk’s purchase of the platform, to anticipate how its policies would drastically change later. He suggested it would be difficult to hold CCDH responsible for harms it could not have foreseen.

“Twitter had a policy of removing tweets and individuals who engaged in neo-Nazi, white supremacists, misogynists, and spreaders of dangerous conspiracy theories. That was the policy of Twitter when the defendant entered into its terms of service,” Breyer said. “You're telling me at the time they were excluded from the website, it was foreseeable that Twitter would change its policies and allow these people on? And I am trying to figure out in my mind how that's possibly true, because I don't think it is."

Speaking after the hearing, Imran Ahmed, CEO of CCDH, was optimistic about the direction of the judge’s inquiry. “We were particularly surprised by the implication in X Corp.’s argument today that it thinks that CCDH should somehow be on the hook for paying for X Corp. to help neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and misogynists escape scrutiny of their reprehensible posts,” he says. “We can't help but note that X Corp. really had no response to our assertion that Musk changed X's policies to reinstate white supremacists, neo-Nazis, misogynists, and other propagators of hateful and toxic content.”

Breyer did not indicate Thursday when he would rule on whether the case could move forward.

Broken Trust

After taking over Twitter in late 2022, Musk fired much of the company's trust and safety team, which kept hateful and dangerous content as well as disinformation off the platform. He then also offered amnesty to users who had been banned for violating the platform’s policies. CCDH is among a number of organizations and academics who have published evidence showing that X has become a haven for harmful and misleading content under Musk’s watch.

The suit against CCDH was just one of many ways in which platforms have sought to limit transparency in recent years. X now charges $42,000 for access to its API, making analyzing data from the platform financially inaccessible to many researchers and members of civil society. For its part, Meta has wound down CrowdTangle, a tool that allowed researchers and journalists to track the spread of posts, and cut off researchers at New York University who were studying political ads and Covid-19 disinformation.

Both Meta and X filed suit against Bright Data, a third-party data collection service, for scraping their platforms. In January, Meta’s case against Bright Data was dismissed. “The Facebook and Instagram Terms do not bar logged-off scraping of public data; perforce it does not prohibit the sale of such public data,” wrote US federal judge Edward Chen in his verdict. “The Terms cannot bar Bright Data’s logged-off scraping activities.”

Bright Data spokesperson Jennifer Burns calls the platforms’ suits against the company “an effort to build a wall around publicly available data.”

Caraballo, of Harvard Law School, says Elon Musk appears to have decided lawsuits are a good strategy for silencing critics of his social platform. In November, X filed a lawsuit against the watchdog group Media Matters for America, accusing the group of trying to drive advertisers away from the platform by reporting how ads appeared next to neo-Nazi content.

The suit was filed in Texas, where anti-SLAPP laws that can be used to quash frivolous lawsuits do not apply in federal courts, which will make it more difficult for the case to be dismissed, says Caraballo. “I think it's incredibly concerning that this is part of that broader pattern, because these are the mechanisms that hold powerful companies accountable,” she says.

She guesses that while X might be able to move forward with a narrow version of its claim that CCDH breached its terms of service, “most of the claims will get tossed out.”

X did not respond to request for comment by the time of publication.