California to Sue Over ‘Illegal and Unconstitutional’ Use of Troops

Donald Trump has been making a habit of invoking emergency powers to provide legal justification for unprecedented actions, ranging from launching a global trade war without the assent of Congress to using a two century-old wartime law to deprive undocumented immigrants of due process in an effort to deport them. In both cases, legal experts said there was no suitable emergency in the first place, and that the actions violated the letter of the laws being cited. (Also in both examples, litigation ensued that will likely end up before a Supreme Court that’s demonstrated a keen willingness to expand presidential power.)

So when it comes to the Republican president’s latest gambit—invoking yet another emergency power to send National Guard troops to Los Angeles—California Governor Gavin Newsom says Trump has gone and done it again. The state said it is suing the administration for what it calls the illegal deployment of its troops—which the Democratic governor condemned as “illegal and unconstitutional.”