Federal trial to start over Trump’s efforts to deploy the National Guard in Portland, Oregon

PORTLAND Ore AP A federal trial over whether President Donald Trump can deploy the National Guard to Portland Oregon is set to begin Wednesday with local police authorities expected to testify that federal agents at the city s U S Immigration and Customs Enforcement building have inflamed protests in new 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 circumstance blocking the troops pending further litigation She revealed that Trump had failed to show that 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 only 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 reported it would rehear the situation before an -judge panel The complex occurrence comes as Democratic cities targeted by Trump for military involvement including Chicago which has filed a separate lawsuit on the issue seek to push back They argue the president has not met the legal requirements to deploy troops and that 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 live-streamers During the trial eyewitnesses are expected to take the stand for both sides and face cross-examination The federal defendants will call representatives from ICE the Defense Department and the Federal Protective Institution the agency that provides shield for federal buildings The administration argues that it has had to shuffle Department of Homeland Guard agents from elsewhere around the country to respond to the protests showing that it 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 certain cases without apparent need or provocation and without first exhausting de-escalation or other less-aggressive options the plaintiffs wrote in a trial brief Portland police have also been gassed by federal law enforcement and on at least one occasion hit with a crowd-control projectile the brief commented The Trump administration says the Portland Police Bureau has been unwilling to help control the protests describing local agents 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 bureaucrats 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 the protesters First Amendment rights Communication between the federal and local leadership worsened as the federal agents surged to the building without a clear command and control structure the state and city revealed To list just one illustrative example at one point pepper balls were shot in the direction of a PPB officer the trial brief reported When confronted federal agents 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 disclosed from Seattle Source