During an appearance on Wednesday’s broadcast of “Hannity,” Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley dismissed the merits of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) efforts to halt the Trump administration’s response to civil unrest in Los Angeles.
“So, there [are] federal agents being attacked, Jonathan, and local law enforcement has handcuffs on them because of the sanctuary state status and city status,” host Sean Hannity said. “What else is Donald Trump supposed to do? Should he be reactive and wait until somebody gets killed? Or a federal building is burned to the ground? Or is he smart to be proactive?”
“Well, you know, this is not a new question and courts are not in a position to second-guess a determination of this kind,” Turley replied. “Cases going back to James Madison have said that courts do not have that role in determining when a president issues an order of deployment of this kind. And under Title 10, it says that the president may federalize a National Guard and says that that order shall be issued through the governor. Now, Governor Newsom saying, well, that means that I also have to sign off. I think that’s pretty wrongheaded. I mean, the Congress knew how to say that a governor makes a separate decision. There’s two other provisions under Title 10 that say that the governor has to give us consent or make a request.”
He continued, “Congress didn’t do that here. It said that the president issues the order based on what he believes is a threat and that order goes through the office of the governor. So I think that this is a very weak argument going before the court. The Department of Justice just filed a brief in response to that request to enjoin the deployment of the National Guard, and it’s a virtual anvil, like just landing on the California brief. I mean, they really take apart California’s arguments and says that no, the president does have this authority. And basically, California is trying to get the court to assume that they’re going to be acting in an unlawful manner, that they’re going to be performing law enforcement functions. They repeatedly state that they are there to protect law enforcement, protect federal buildings.”
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