'Where are the limits?' Fed-up judge cuts off Trump DOJ from the bench
Source: Raw Story
August 12, 2025 8:21PM ET
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, presiding over a case in San Francisco regarding President Donald Trump’s deployment of military forces to Los Angeles in June, pressed the Department of Justice for answers during a Tuesday hearing. “Where are the limits? Where are the limits?” the judge repeatedly asked, cutting off the DOJ, according to reporting by journalist Adam Klasfeld.
Breyer is hearing arguments to determine whether the Trump administration broke federal law by deploying National Guard troops and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles in response to June protests over immigration raids. The operation, which aimed to disperse demonstrators in Los Angeles against immigration raids, was criticized by legal experts.
During Tuesday's hearing, the judge emphasized the inherent danger of law enforcement, asking if that justified a carte blanche use of military force inside American cities. The DOJ lawyer, in seeking to defend the deployment, offered no clear boundaries, prompting concern about unchecked executive authority.
On the opposing side, California's legal team offered vehement objections. “There has been a standing army in Los Angeles for two months,” the state’s lawyer declared. The attorney further argued forcefully for judicial intervention.
Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/department-of-justice-2673879834/
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But if this Judge Breyer in San Francisco rules that the administration criminally violated the Posse comitatus Act, the military has more grounds to refuse being turned inward, and LA will be de-occupied.
The worst case is if Breyer rules against Trump, and then Trump proceeds to deploy the military into cities anyway. There could then be civil unrest that he would love to use as his pretext for invoking the Insurrection Act, which bypasses the Posse comitatus Act and so begins his militarized occupation of the country -- or at least the blue states he'll try to control.
If that happens, then I'd join you and say "we are occupied by a military dictatorship." But even then, the military could itself refuse to abide by what it might consider unconstitutional order, in that every last person in US military swears an oath to uphold the Constitution, not the commander-in-chief.
Since none of that has happened yet, you're too soon. 
