D.C. Sues Trump to Stop
National Guard Deployment
Washington, D.C., sued the Trump administration last week in an effort to stop the deployment of the National Guard to the city as part of a law enforcement surge.
The lawsuit accuses President Donald Trump of overreaching his constitutional authorities. It also says the deployment is hurting the city’s tourism industry.
Local opposition is growing.
Trump said the troops and sharp increase in arrests were necessary because of what he called a “public safety emergency.”
By declaring an emergency, the president can bypass constitutional limits on his authority to better manage crises.
Local officials say there is no emergency, merely a power grab by Trump. Their lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., says sending more than 2,000 National Guard troops to patrol areas near national monuments and federal buildings is a “military occupation.”
Some of the soldiers are carrying machine guns. None have been fired at anyone so far.
“No American city should have the U.S. military — particularly out-of-state military who are not accountable to the residents and untrained in local law enforcement — policing its streets,” Brian Schwalb, D.C.’s attorney general, said in a statement. “It’s D.C. today but could be any other city tomorrow.”
The lawsuit requests a court declaration that sending the National Guard troops to Washington is illegal. It also asks for an injunction ordering them to leave.
The court action requested by D.C. officials would be consistent with a California judge’s ruling two days earlier that declared Trump’s decision to send National Guard soldiers to Los Angeles in June illegal.
The Los Angeles deployment violated federal laws that prohibited military action for domestic law enforcement absent a foreign invasion, the California judge ruled.
The Trump administration “systematically used armed soldiers (whose identity was often obscured by protective armor) and military vehicles to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engage in crowd control and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles,” the ruling said.
The D.C. lawsuit follows the same reasoning when it says that sending National Guard troops to patrol the city runs “roughshod over a fundamental tenet of American democracy — that the military should not be involved in domestic law enforcement.”
It adds another element by arguing a violation of the D.C. Home Rule Act. The 1973 federal law switched much of the control over city government from a congressional committee to a local mayor and city council. It granted them rights for elections and to pass local laws.
Calling out the National Guard would require the mayor’s consent under the Home Rule Act. Mayor Muriel Bowser has asked the Trump administration to end the emergency declaration and to withdraw the troops.
Instead, the president said last week week he would extend their presence in Washington from the original plan of 30 days until the end of November and perhaps longer. He said in his Aug. 11 executive order they were needed to “reestablish law, order and public safety” in the city.
A White House statement said the D.C. lawsuit is “nothing more than another attempt — at the detriment of D.C. residents and visitors — to undermine the President’s highly successful operations to stop violent crime in D.C.”
Most of the Guardsmen have been deputized as U.S. Marshals. It gives them authority to detain people suspected of breaking laws.
Hundreds of people have been arrested since the law enforcement surge started last month.
Local residents have protested in street demonstrations. Others serving on grand juries have refused to indict some of the protesters on the charges filed by federal prosecutors.
The most famous so far is known as “the sandwich guy.” He was seen on video throwing a Subway sandwich at a Customs and Border Patrol agent on Aug. 11 after saying, “I don’t want you in my city.”
He was arrested and charged with a felony but a grand jury refused to indict him. Prosecutors then refiled charges of misdemeanor assault. The case is pending.
The man arrested, Sean Dunn, was fired from his job with the Justice Department. He also has become a symbol for resistance to the National Guard deployment and federal law enforcement surge.
Meanwhile, bills are pending in Congress that would increase federal control over Washington’s local government.
For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.
Supreme Court is Next Stop
For Dispute Over Trump’s Tariffs
A federal appeals court ruling late last month that struck down Trump administration tariffs has put the case on the fast track to the Supreme Court and is providing the biggest test yet of the president’s economic agenda.
The appellate court’s 7-to-4 ruling said President Donald Trump lacked constitutional authority to dramatically raise tariffs on foreign imports. The rates range from 10 percent to 50 percent, depending on the country.
The court said only Congress was authorized to raise the tariffs.
Trump tried to bypass Congress by declaring a national emergency that he said has put the U.S. economy in danger.
A declaration of national emergency gives the president extraordinary powers, which Trump said could include raising tariffs.
The ruling is a major setback for Trump as he tries to bring back manufacturing industries from overseas. He said they would create jobs, bring in billions of dollars of revenue and enrich the U.S. government.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said the tariffs could remain in effect while the Trump administration appeals to the Supreme Court.
Attorneys for the U.S. Solicitor General’s office are dropping hints they will argue Trump’s use of a 1977 emergency powers law to justify the tariffs was proper to address decades of trade imbalances that are deepening the federal deficit.
They also argue that the tariffs can be used effectively as a punishment for countries like Canada, China and Mexico for failing to stop illegal imports of fentanyl.
The appellate ruling was issued on the same day the final loophole in the Trump administration’s sweeping tariffs on foreign imports closed. It was an exemption from duties for imports worth less than $800.
Economists are predicting prices for U.S. consumers will rise. Small to mid-size businesses that depend on the shipments are expected to be hit hardest.
Low-value, or “de minimus,” shipments are 92 percent of U.S. import cargo, representing a value of $64 billion last year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The U.S. Postal Service and private delivery services report handling about four million of the packages daily.
Some countries are suspending mail deliveries of packages to the United States over confusion on what the tariffs mean for them.
The U.S. government had exempted de minimis merchandise from tariffs for the past 90 years. Now the only exemptions are for letters that do not contain merchandise and gifts valued at $100 or less.
For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.
Judge Refuses to Require Google
To Divest from Chrome and Android
Google will be allowed to keep its Chrome browser and Android operating system for smartphones under a landmark federal court ruling last week.
The Justice Department had sued Google, claiming its dominance of the online search engine industry violated antitrust laws.
The Justice Department sought a court order that would have forced Google to sell Chrome and end its distribution contracts that made it the only search engine for Apple Inc. computers and other technology companies.
The ruling gave Google’s competitors a few concessions, such as requirements that Google share some of its competitive operating data and limit its exclusive dealing contracts with advertisers.
Google's stock rose to a record 230 on the Nasdaq stock exchange within a day after the ruling.
U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta in Washington, D.C., said selling Chrome and ending Google’s distribution contracts would hurt the entire search engine industry. The damage could be severe at a time internet companies are leading development of artificial intelligence, the judge said.
“There are strong reasons not to jolt the system and to allow market forces to do the work,” Mehta wrote.
The ruling will allow a contract to continue in which Google pays Apple more than $20 billion a year to be the default search engine on the Safari browser. It also grants the companies an opportunity for more of Google’s artificial intelligence services on Apple’s smartphones and other devices.
The companies have negotiated the possibility of installing Google’s artificial intelligence search system called Gemini on iPhones.
Another issue in the years-long legal case was Google’s revenue-sharing with companies whose customers purchase products through ads on the internet platform.
Granting the Justice Department’s request to eliminate the shared revenue contracts would have consequences that stretch beyond Google, the judge said.
“Cutting off payments from Google almost certainly will impose substantial — in some cases, crippling — downstream harms to distribution partners, related markets, and consumers, which counsels against a broad payment ban," Mehta wrote.
He mentioned examples of large companies like Motorola and Mozilla that depend on revenue shared from Google search advertising.
Mehta’s decision this week contradicted his previous decision in the case last year. He ruled that Google illegally monopolized the search engine market.
He also said Google used illegal distribution contracts that helped it build a 90 percent market share and shut out any realistic chances rival companies could compete.
Google argued that consumers still had options, despite any of its distribution contracts. They had unrestrained choices of competing internet platforms, such as Yahoo, DuckDuckGo and Microsoft’s Bing, Google’s attorneys said.
Despite a ruling that largely favored Google, its attorneys said they might appeal on the concessions they would be forced to make.
"We have concerns about how these requirements will impact our users and their privacy, and we're reviewing the decision closely,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google's vice president for regulatory affairs, said in a blog post.
Despite the judge’s statement that the Justice Department “overreached in seeking divestiture of these key assets,” its attorneys claimed victory.
The head of the antitrust division, Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater, called the decision an important win in a post on X.
"We proved in court that competition had been frozen in place for two decades in internet search,” Slater wrote. “Google's tactics have excluded competition, harming consumers and slowing innovation."
The cases are U.S. et al. v. Google LLC and Colorado et al. v. Google LLC in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.
Magistrate Criticizes U.S. Attorney’s Office
For Prosecutions He Calls Unfounded
The brisk pace of arrests and prosecutions in Washington, D.C., under U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro drew a rebuke last week from a federal judge who said federal prosecutors have “no credibility left.”
Grand juries in at least five recent cases took the rare step of refusing to return felony indictments against criminal defendants.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui said some cases prosecutors are pursuing should never be in federal court.
In one case, a man was arrested on a felony charge after he allegedly damaged a light fixture at a local bar and made rambling threats against the president. He was held in jail for nearly a week before charges were dropped.
Faruqui said the U.S. Attorney’s office was “playing cops and robbers like children.”
Pirro responded by saying Faruqui "has repeatedly indicated his allegiance to those who violate the law and carry illegal guns." He was a prosecutor before he became a judge.
Justice Department rules say U.S. attorneys should prosecute only if “the admissible evidence will probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction."
In an order demanding an explanation from prosecutors, Faruqui wrote, "Given that there have been an unprecedented number of cases that the U.S. Attorney dismissed in the past ten days, all of whom were detained for some period of time, the Court is left to question if this principle still applies."
Bureau of Justice Statistics figures show that of the roughly 162,000 cases presented to federal grand juries since 2010, only 11 of them failed to return an indictment. The five or more cases in
Washington in the past weeks in which grand juries “no-billed” charges indicate an extraordinarily high number.
Pirro wrote about Faruqui in a social media post that said, “This judge took an oath to follow the law, yet he has allowed his politics to consistently cloud his judgment and his requirement to follow the law. America voted for safe communities, law and order, and this judge is the antithesis of that.”
Faruqui is one of four magistrates at U.S. District Court in Washington.
For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.
Death Penalty Possible for Suspect
In Capital Jewish Museum Killings
Prosecutors are dropping hints they will seek the death penalty against the accused shooter charged with killing two people at the Capital Jewish Museum on May 21.
Elias Rodriguez pleaded not guilty last week in U.S. District Court to hate crime and murder charges.
The nine-count indictment says he shouted “Free Palestine” as he fired a handgun about 20 times at the victims, Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Milgrim, 26. Both of them worked at the Israeli Embassy.
The indictment refers to a federal death penalty statute when it says that Rodriguez killed Milgrim “in an especially heinous, cruel, and depraved manner.” The death penalty is outlawed under D.C. law.
Milgrim was exiting the museum with her fiance when they were shot in a murder captured on surveillance video. Prosecutors say Milgrim tried to crawl away after being shot initially but Rodriguez followed after her, reloaded his gun and continued shooting her as she tried to sit up.
Afterward, he allegedly walked into the museum and displayed a traditional headdress worn by men in the Middle East called a kaffiyeh while saying, “I did it for Palestine. I did it for Gaza.”
Prosecutors say they have evidence of social media posts in which Rodriguez blames Israel for “atrocities” in the Gaza Strip.
Rodriguez entered his not guilty plea at the hearing last week wearing an orange prison jumpsuit. He told Judge Randolph D. Moss he is satisfied with the three public defenders and a private attorney who represent him.
The last time prosecutors sought the death penalty for a crime in Washington, D.C., was in 2003 against two men accused of killing at least 19 people. A jury instead converted their sentences to life in prison.
The decision on whether to seek the death penalty for Rodrigues lies with U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“This brutal, antisemitic violence has no place in our country or anywhere in civilization,” Bondi said in a statement after the shooting. “We will follow the facts and secure the most severe possible punishment for the perpetrator of this heinous crime, which robbed two wonderful young people of a bright future together.”
Rodriguez’s attorneys said in a court filing that the “legal theories raised in the indictment are complex and not usual.”
For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.