A federal judge on Thursday halted for now Donald Trump’s deployment of national guard troops to Washington DC, dealing the president a temporary legal setback to his efforts to send the military to US cities over the objections of local leaders.
US district judge Jia Cobb, an appointee of former president Joe Biden, temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deploying national guard troops to enforce the law in the nation’s capital without approval from its mayor.
Cobb paused her ruling until 11 December to allow the Trump administration to appeal.
The legal fight is playing out alongside several others across the country as Trump presses against longstanding but rarely tested constraints on presidents using troops to enforce domestic law.
The DC attorney general, Brian Schwalb, an elected Democrat, sued on 4 September after Trump announced the deployment on 11 August.
The lawsuit accused Trump of unlawfully usurping control of the city’s law enforcement and violating a law prohibiting troops from performing domestic police work.
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