Strong: It lacks basic common sense to assert that a state that is being occupied by a standing army within the state's borders has no legal recourse to challenge the unlawful conduct of those troops. That defies basic principles of federalism, and it ignores Congress's clear intent in enacting PCA
Now that's a Strong argument.
Strong is strong!
In fairness, congress's original intent when enacting the PCA was to make space for racism, which is actually aligned with trump's intent deploying federal troops to CA. But I don't think the defendants plan to make that argument.
Strong: Defendants also seek to impose a very high standard on plaintiffs for invoking this "ultra vires" action, and we think they're using the wrong standard.
Strong: The standard the court should be following here was defined in Murphy, in which the 9th Circuit said an "ultra vires" claim must plead plausible factual allegations identifying an aspect of the designation that exceeds the federal government's statutory authority. That's what we've done...
No there there
Strong says the DOJ's position would leave an inability to challenge clearly unlawful conduct in relation to PCA violations. They say it could be a criminal action, but as Your Honor identified, that would raise immunity concerns.
Strong: Even if there could be a prosecution, that would fall to DOJ to prosecute the violation. But DOJ is here in this court arguing that the conduct doesn't amount to PCA violations. That position would ask the federal government to police itself.
Bondi is a bozo sycophant suck up to Project 25 fascism
If this goes to SCOTUS get ready for parsing of words like “rebellion” and “insurrection” and Latin terms like “ultra vires” . The justices will wow us with their reading of Miriam Webster, and of course Presidential Immunity.
As to the argument that 12406 is an exception to the PCA, Strong notes that 12406 doesn't apply to the deployment of the marines in the state (just the national guard). What's more, the defendants ask court to read a broad exception into that statute, but there's no express authorization.
Strong further argues that California is a proper plaintiff to seek redress for federalism related harms. Here defendants violations pose a threat to the state's police power guaranteed by the 10th Amendment, she says.
Strong: When the federal government uses the military to intrude on civilian life as it's doing here, it also intrudes on the state's traditional police powers and the 10th Amendment. Defendants have directly usurped the state's traditional law enforcement activity...
Strong also says the state has standing bc of economic harms and that if standing is an issue for the court then she would request leave to develop further facts on that. She notes that defense raised standing issue for first time only after close of discovery and exchange of witness lists.
Strong pushes back on the Trump administration's claim that there must be a showing of willfulness -- that defendants had specific knowledge that their conduct was illegal. That's not correct as a matter of law, she says. That high standard is typically reserved for tax law cases or other contexts
Exactly. For you and me, ignorance of the law is not an excuse. There's no reason to grant a special exception here.
Strong: Where defendants themselves acknowledge that they are bound by the PCA, there can be no real question that defendants could not accidentally or innocently violate the bar against military involvement. So we think the correct standard here is a lower standard, as discussed in Brian v. US
Is it my bias, or is Strong the better litigator by far?
lol the days of this regime policing itself are long over. No checks no balances no oversight
That's why the DOJ is supposed to be independent.
Right, but there’s a strong tradition of DoJ independence from the other executive departments, so *touches earpiece*…I’m sorry, I’m just receiving some news.
I wonder if the DOJ attorneys on this case are failing to uphold the Constitution of the US by both failing to prosecute and defending the government's decisions in this instance?
yes.
Was it really the intention of SCOTUS to give Trump immunity for every order he could possibly give to the military?
No.
Yes
Yes
If it’s in his “official capacity”, yes.
Yes.
As complicit as SCOTUS is, I don't think they expected him to deploy military forces against the homeland
Justice Sotomayor raised the hypothetical of the president assassinating a political opponent in her dissent to the presidential immunity finding. It clearly occurred to them that the president deploying military resources against Americans on American soil was possible.
p. 93 in this PDF.
A lot of scotus rulings don’t reach THOSE implications though, but using the military against Americans is not an act that the president would be immune from. He/she can still be prosecuted/sued for it.
Doing literally anything with the military could easily be argued as an "official act" since the president's authority to command the military is via his official capacity. By default, trump is currently immune from accountability (in US courts) for literally any command he issues to the military.
trump's lawyers even made this argument directly, and the SCOTUS found in their favor. www.yahoo.com/news/trump-t...
more relevant quotes here www.huffpost.com/entry/donald...
Perhaps once the National Guard were properly federalized. But can the National Guard be properly federalized when the use of it goes against PC? Shouldn't @governor.ca.gov be the Commander-in-Chief unless and until someone else has lawfully replaced him? In this instance, Trump may be immune but...
...that still doesn't mean he is the Commander in Chief of the California NG if the person who is supposed to be in charge is @gavinnewsom.bsky.social. Governors don't report to the president.
They absolutely did and they hope he does.
Does any lawyerly person know how the laws surrounding the National Guard work? Can individual states make laws about how the National Guard is allowed to work in their respective States? Or is all of the law at the federal level? Also, can blue states make laws forbidding LE, troops, or agents...
...from wearing masks and disguising their identities? Would those state laws be able to override federal policies?
SCOTUS has played us once again
God damn John Roberts.
I found the state of CA's allegations very plausible.
It’s remarkable to note which side cites applicable case law and which does not.
If something is ultra vires, it’s invalid because the actor had no legal right or power to do it under the law that governs them.
"it lacks basic common sense" describes so much of what's going on right now
And basic decency... they know they are twisting interpretation of laws in whatever direction they need to in order to justify fascist acts. 1/2
Just an ordinary person's thought reading this. Lost in all of this, for me, is any pretense of actually trying to determine what is lawful - on the part of the fascists. Finesse an argument the corrupt justices can embrace... anything to "win."