Federal trial over Trump’s National Guard deployment in Portland begins

By CLAIRE RUSH and GENE JOHNSON Associated Press PORTLAND Ore AP A federal trial over whether President Donald Trump can deploy the National Guard to Portland Oregon was underway Wednesday with police officers expected to testify that federal agents at the city s U S Immigration and Customs Enforcement building have inflamed protests in fresh weeks through excessive force U S District Court Judge Karin Immergut a Trump appointee will preside over the trial in Portland The trial stems from a lawsuit filed by the city and state against the Trump administration in a bid to block the troop deployment Immergut has already issued two temporary restraining orders in the matter blocking the troops pending further litigation She ascertained that Trump had failed to show he had met the conditions set out by Congress for using the military domestically She described his assessment of the situation in Portland which Trump called war ravaged as solely untethered to the facts One of Immergut s orders was paused last week by a three-judge panel of the th U S Court of Appeals But late Tuesday the appeals court vacated that decision and mentioned it would rehear the affair before an -judge panel The complex episode comes as Democratic cities targeted by Trump for military involvement including Chicago which has filed a separate lawsuit on the issue are pushing back They argue the president has not met the legal requirements to deploy troops and doing so would violate states sovereignty The administration argues that it requirements the troops because protests have impeded law enforcement operations Portland s ICE building outside downtown has been the site of nightly protests that peaked in June when police declared one demonstration a riot Smaller clashes have also occurred since then and federal officers have fired tear gas to clear crowds which at times have included counterprotesters and livestreamers During the trial observers are expected to take the stand for both sides and face cross-examination The federal defendants will call officers from ICE the Department of Defense and the Federal Protective Arrangement the agency that provides protection for federal buildings The administration argues that it has had to shuffle Department of Homeland Shield agents from elsewhere around the country to respond to the Portland protests showing that the city has been unable to enforce the law with regular forces one of the conditions set by Congress for calling out the National Guard It has also characterized the protests as a rebellion or danger of rebellion another of the conditions The state and city argue that federal officers have at times used force that appears to be needless and arbitrary They have deployed tear gas and pepper balls on small numbers of nonviolent protesters outside of the ICE building repeatedly in chosen cases without apparent need or provocation and without first exhausting de-escalation or other less-aggressive options the plaintiffs wrote in a trial brief Related Articles Amnesty says US strike on a Yemen prison that killed dozens of African settlers may be a war crime What to know as the annual sign-up window for strength insurance arrives Nvidia tops trillion in total value as Wall Street waits for a Fed announcement The US draws down troops on NATO s eastern flank as Europe frets about a guard vacuum Jury resumes deliberations in the trial of an Illinois deputy who killed Sonya Massey Portland police have also been gassed by federal law enforcement and on at least one occasion hit with a crowd-control projectile the brief announced The Trump administration says the Portland Police Bureau has been unwilling to help control the protests describing bureaucrats in a trial brief as unhelpful and at times hostile The record is replete with evidence of the PPB failing to provide assistance when federal administrators have requested it Justice Department attorneys wrote The police say they have made arrests when crimes have been committed but that they also must respect protesters First Amendment rights Communication between local and federal officials worsened as federal agents surged to the building without a clear command and control structure the state and city stated To list just one illustrative example at one point pepper balls were shot in the direction of a PPB officer the trial brief noted When confronted federal administrators responded help or get out of the way In Chicago police officers have similarly been exposed to tear gas deployed by federal functionaries against protesters The Portland trial is expected to last three days Johnson announced from Seattle