This morning, a top aide to President Trump called the anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles an “insurrection.” Should Trump invoke the Insurrection Act, he could deploy the U.S. military to the streets of LA to put down the demonstrations. The 19th-century law allows for an exception to the Posse Comitatus, which normally prohibits U.S. troops from acting as domestic law enforcement.
“An insurrection against the laws and sovereignty of the United States,” Trump’s aide Stephen Miller said on X, referring to video of the LA protests.
I was inclined to take the statement seriously but I did not realize how quickly Miller’s threat would be carried out.
“We're gonna bring National Guard in tonight,” Trump’s border czar Tom Homan just told Fox News.
A senior Pentagon intelligence analyst told me that Homan’s remark wasn’t idle bluster. The Pentagon, he explained, has been actively discussing the deployment of military personnel to Los Angeles in response to the demonstrations.
It wasn’t clear if Homan was supposed to disclose it, but this isn’t just rhetoric, the Pentagon source told me.
The Insurrection Act requires that the president issue a formal dispersal order before sending in troops, which Trump has not done yet. But the administration has already alleged that the anti-ICE protesters are impeding federal law enforcement, which forms the legal basis for the Insurrection Act to be invoked.
It would not be the first time the U.S. military was deployed to LA. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush deployed U.S. Marines to Compton after invoking the Insurrection Act.
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