Trump-Appointed Judge In Oregon Could Slow Down His Push For Troops In U.S. Cities

WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump’s efforts to put troops on American streets have encountered a new and possibly formidable obstacle: a federal judge Trump himself appointed six years ago, and is therefore harder to malign as “Democrat,” “leftist,” or “woke.”

Many judges have ruled against Trump in the nine months since he returned to the presidency, but most were appointed to the federal bench by Democratic and pre-Trump Republican presidents.

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Karin Immergut was given the lifetime U.S. District Court judgeship in Oregon by Trump himself, following years as the U.S. attorney for Oregon and, prior to that, worked for independent counsel Kenneth Starr as he investigated then-President Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

Trump and his staff, nevertheless, have attacked her anyway.

“That judge ought to be ashamed of himself,” Trump told reporters Sunday, perhaps not remembering that Immergut is not a man. “If he made that kind of a decision ― Portland is burning to the ground. You have agitators, insurrectionists, all you have to do is look at the ― look at the television, turn on your television, read your newspapers. It’s burning to the ground. The governor, the mayor, the politicians are petrified for their lives.”

He also blamed her appointment on aides who recommended her. “I wasn’t served well. If they’d put judges like that on. I wasn’t served well by the people that pick judges,” Trump said.

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Portland, though, is not in fact burning to the ground, as Immergut made clear in both her original restraining order Saturday blocking Trump from unilaterally mobilizing the Oregon National Guard as well as a second one Sunday stopping him from using National Guard troops from other states.

“The president’s determination was simply untethered to the facts,” Immergut wrote in her Saturday order, rejecting claims made by Trump’s lawyers. “Here, the protests in Portland were not ‘a rebellion’ and did not pose a ’danger of a rebellion’…. This is a nation of constitutional law, not martial law. Defendants have made a range of arguments that, if accepted, risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power—to the detriment of this nation.”

In an extraordinary hearing Sunday night, Immergut scolded Department of Justice lawyers for Trump’s attempts to circumvent her decision from the previous day by bringing in troops from elsewhere. “You’re an officer of the court. Do you believe this is an appropriate way to deal with my order?” she said. “I see the defendants’ conduct as being in direct contravention of the court’s order issued yesterday.

Trump, meanwhile, continues to speak openly about wanting to use troops in American cities against American citizens, as he promised he would during his campaign last year.

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“I signed an executive order to provide training for a quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances,” he told the military’s top generals and admirals called together for a meeting at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, last week. “This is going to be a big thing for the people in this room because it’s the enemy from within, and we have to handle it before it gets out of control.”

In a speech to Navy sailors and officers in Norfolk, Virginia, on Sunday, Trump specifically attacked the opposition party in yet another breach of protocol before the traditionally non-political military. “We have to take care of this little gnat that’s on our shoulder called the Democrats,” he said.

On Monday, Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, defended his desire to use the military for civilian law enforcement, notwithstanding a federal law that specifically prohibits the practice.

“Why should they be concerned about the federal government offering help to make their cities a safer place?” she said. “They should be concerned about the fact that people in their cities right now are being gunned down every single night, and the president, all he’s trying to do is fix it.”

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She also criticized Immergut’s ruling ― “I think her opinion is untethered in reality” ― as did Stephen Miller, Trump’s top immigration and Homeland Security aide.

“A district court judge has no conceivable authority, whatsoever, to restrict the president and commander-in-chief from dispatching members of the U.S. military to defend federal lives and property,” he wrote on social media. “Today’s judicial ruling is one of the most egregious and thunderous violations of constitutional order we have ever seen.”

Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman from Illinois who became an early GOP Trump critic, warned that all the inflammatory language coming from Trump and his allies is intentional.

“This is all purposeful. Trump’s ‘radical left-wing violence’ lie is like his ‘stolen election’ lie,” Walsh said. “As he prepped his voters to not accept his 2020 election loss when he lost, he’s preparing his voters now to accept the military firing on American citizens when that time comes.”

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