9th Circuit Deals Trump Major National Guard Defeat — After Refusing to Let DOJ Drop Appeal

The Trump administration attempted to walk away from an appeal involving its hotly contested deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles, but the 9th Circuit apparently had other ideas.

In a significant ruling issued Friday, a divided three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit affirmed a lower court injunction blocking President Donald Trump's June 2025 federalization of California National Guard troops, finding that the president exceeded his statutory authority and violated constitutional separation-of-powers principles.

But there's an additional twist to this one: The administration had asked the court to dismiss its appeal before the judges issued their decision. The divided panel refused.

And that makes this one sting a bit more than your garden-variety appellate smackdown.

The Backstory

The dispute dates back to June 2025, when protests erupted in Los Angeles following federal immigration enforcement operations. Some demonstrations turned violent, with protesters throwing rocks and other objects at officers, damaging property, and clashing with law enforcement.

President Trump responded by ordering 4,000 members of California's National Guard into federal service to protect federal personnel and property. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) challenged the move, and U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ordered the administration to return control of the Guard to the state.

Initially, the 9th Circuit sided with Trump, temporarily blocking Breyer's order while the appeal proceeded. But then came a significant development: The Supreme Court weighed in on a similar National Guard dispute involving Illinois, setting out important limitations on when presidents may federalize state Guard troops.

With that intervening SCOTUS ruling in hand, the 9th Circuit has now reached a different conclusion.

The Majority's Ruling

The majority, Judges Jennifer Sung (Biden) and Eric Miller (Trump), examined two provisions of federal law that the administration relied upon.

The first authorizes federalization when the president cannot execute federal laws using the country's regular forces. But following the Supreme Court's guidance in the Illinois case, the panel explained that "regular forces" means the regular military — and that federal law generally prohibits using those forces for domestic law enforcement without specific authorization. The administration, per the majority, failed to demonstrate that it satisfied those requirements.

The second provision permits federalization when there's a rebellion or danger of rebellion against federal authority. Here, the majority acknowledged the violence in Los Angeles but concluded that sporadic attacks and destruction during protests over immigration enforcement did not amount to an organized uprising against the federal government.

Because neither statutory provision authorized Trump's action, the majority concluded that the president had exceeded his authority. 

And it went even further than that: The ruling notes that the Constitution gives Congress the power to call state militias into federal service. Congress has delegated some of that authority to the president, but only under specified circumstances. When those conditions aren't met, the panel reasoned, the president cannot simply claim that authority for himself.

The majority also found that improperly taking control of California's Guard violated the state's rights under the Tenth Amendment.

The Plot Twist: DOJ Tried to Drop the Appeal

In a separate order issued Friday, the panel explained why it rejected the administration's request to voluntarily dismiss its appeal. Ordinarily, courts allow appellants to drop their appeals. But the majority noted that this case had already been fully briefed and argued, and the judges had begun preparing their decision.

More importantly, the court expressed concern about allowing parties to avoid unfavorable binding precedent by abandoning appeals while preserving the ability to raise the same arguments in future litigation. However, the majority stopped short of finding that DOJ had engaged in improper gamesmanship here. It concluded that the possibility of manipulating the development of precedent was reason enough to refuse dismissal here.

Judge Mark Bennett (Trump) dissented from both rulings. He argued that the court should have allowed DOJ to withdraw its appeal following the intervening Supreme Court decision, rather than issue a sweeping published opinion addressing constitutional questions that could be resolved later. (The panel did allow the administration to dismiss a separate, less-developed appeal involving extensions of the Guard deployment.)

What This All Means

Friday's ruling doesn't resolve every lawsuit involving Trump's National Guard deployments, and it concerns preliminary relief rather than a final judgment following trial. But it does establish binding precedent within the 9th Circuit concerning the limits of presidential authority to federalize state National Guard troops.

Perhaps even more significantly, it presents an unusual appellate showdown: The administration sought to end its appeal, and the court refused — then issued a published ruling against it.

This dispute is ultimately about more than what happened on the streets of Los Angeles in the summer of 2025. It's about where presidential authority ends, where Congress's authority begins, and who gets to decide when those boundaries have been crossed.

And it's pretty much guaranteed we've not heard the last word on that question.

Editor's Note: Unelected federal judges are obstructing President Trump's agenda and ignoring the will of the people.

Help us expose out-of-control judges determined to halt President Trump's mandate for change. Join RedState VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.