By Devan Cole, CNN
National Guard members on patrol in Washington Photo: Alex Wroblewski/Bloomberg/Getty Images via CNN Newsource
National Guard troops deployed to Washington, DC, can remain there for now, after a federal appeals court on Thursday temporarily froze a judge's ruling that would have soon required them to leave the city's streets.
The DC Circuit Court of Appeals said it was keeping the lower-court decision on hold for now to give it time to consider whether to pause the ruling indefinitely.
Implementation of the decision, issued on November 20 by US District Judge Jia Cobb, was already delayed by Cobb for 21 days to allow for appeals. Under the new ruling from the DC Circuit, Cobb's directive for President Donald Trump and the Defense Department to remove the troops from the District will be on hold "pending further order of this court."
The appeals court noted in its unsigned order that the decision was intended to give the court more time to consider whether to issue a more lasting pause on Cobb's order and "should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits" of the request for a longer pause.
The presence of several thousand National Guardsmen in DC - both from the city and from Republican-led states - has come under renewed scrutiny in recent days following a shooting of two troops last week that left one guard member dead and another in critical condition.
Just after the shooting, lawyers for the administration asked the DC Circuit to freeze Cobb's ruling, but made no mention of the attack in court papers.
But on Tuesday, DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb's office seized on the "horrific attack" as it urged the DC Circuit to reject the Trump administration's request, arguing that allowing the troops to remain in the city any longer "requires the diversion of scarce police resources, and exposes both the public and Guard members to substantial public safety risks."
They pointed to the fact that DC police officers have had to coordinate with and escort guardsmen in the city to minimize threats, a task they say has "redoubled" following last week's attack.
The legal wrangling over troops in the nation's capital is playing out as a series of separate cases over Trump's deployment of troops in other Democratic-led cities and states around the US continues. Those cases have entangled all levels of the federal judiciary, with the Supreme Court currently considering an emergency appeal in a challenge to Trump's deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago.
- CNN
