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The Trump administration urged a federal judge during a hearing in Oregon on Friday to terminate a restraining order and clear the way for the government to deploy National Guard troops in Portland.
The administration argued to Judge Karin Immergut that a higher court had already greenlit President Donald Trump’s use of the National Guard there. Immergut, a Trump appointee, said she would decide by Monday whether to toss out her order.
“[I’ll be] working as fast as I can to get a decision that honors the 9th Circuit decision but also takes into account some of the new arguments and new information that’s been provided,” Immergut said.
The Trump administration has remained blocked from deploying the reserved troops to support the president’s law enforcement crackdown in Portland, a liberal haven that Trump claims is rife with illegal immigrants, street crime and threats to federal law enforcement.
“I looked at Portland over the weekend, the place is burning down, just burning down,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office this week.
Immergut’s hearing was only the latest in a string of clashes between local Democratic leaders and the president over their division of law enforcement powers. The president has claimed he is authorized to deploy National Guard troops in cities to support federal immigration enforcement officers, while several blue states and cities claim Trump is wildly mischaracterizing the level of crime and unrest and that military reinforcements are unwarranted and encroach on their sovereignty.
A lawyer arguing on behalf of Oregon told Immergut on Friday that Trump’s attempt to deploy 200 National Guard soldiers from other states into Portland had “no justification whatsoever.”
The lawyer called it a “grossly disproportionate response to the situation.”
The court saga in Oregon began when Immergut issued two back-to-back restraining orders blocking Trump from deploying California National Guard soldiers to Portland and blocking Trump from deploying any National Guard soldiers to Portland, respectively.
The government appealed the first order, and a 9th Circuit panel decided this week in a 2-1 decision to side with Trump in that matter. But a full bench of judges might now reconsider that decision, and Immergut’s second order also remains intact, meaning Trump currently cannot deploy the National Guard to Oregon.
A Department of Justice lawyer said the 9th Circuit panel’s decision halting Immergut’s first order means both of her orders should “rise and fall together.”
“I just don’t know that there’s any way around that,” the lawyer said.
The 9th Circuit panel had found that Trump was likely to succeed in his case as it proceeds through the courts and also accused Immergut of discounting months of violence and disruptions in Portland over the summer.
Regardless of what Immergut does with her remaining active restraining order, the court fights are far from over as the existing orders from the courts have all been on an emergency basis.
A similar question about Trump’s use of the National Guard in Illinois is pending before the Supreme Court.
In Oregon, Immergut is also holding a short trial next week to make a more long-term finding about Trump’s use of the National Guard in that state.
Fox News’ Lee Ross contributed.
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