If you support the protests, you should tell everyone you know that you support them.
Some of us have jobs, commitments, health conditions, or other circumstances that prevent us from marching with our fellow citizens in the streets. But for those of us who cannot march out of love for our country and to protect our fellow citizens from the criminal bullies who have stolen our federal government, we must feel free to tell everyone that we support the marchers.
Tell your boss at work. Tell your coworkers. Tell your neighbors. Tell your family. Let everyone know you support the marchers.
This does not make you a radical. It makes you part of the human race.
The marchers are defending constitutional government. They’re defending the rule of law. They’re defending your rights and mine. They’re standing up to criminals who wage unconstitutional war, who shoot citizens in the streets, who violate every principle this country was founded on.
Supporting them isn’t extreme. Silence is extreme. Silence is collaboration. Silence is choosing the side of the criminals.
You don’t have to march to matter. You don’t have to risk arrest to resist. You just have to stop pretending neutrality is an option when your government is killing people.
Say it: I support the protests.
Say it to everyone. Say it at work. Say it at home. Say it to strangers.
This is how majorities recognize they’re majorities. This is how isolated people realize they’re not alone. This is how the criminals learn there are more of us than there are of them.
I support the protests. So should you. And you should say so.
Out loud. To everyone.
That’s not radicalism. That’s citizenship.
Mike Brock is a former tech exec who was on the leadership team at Block. Originally published at his Notes From the Circus.
It’s no secret that 2025 has givenAmericansplentytoprotestabout. But as news cameras showed protesters filling streets of cities across the country, law enforcement officers—including U.S. Border Patrol agents—were quietly watching those same streets through different lenses: Flock Safety automated license plate readers (ALPRs) that tracked every passing car.
Through an analysis of 10 months of nationwide searches on Flock Safety’s servers, we discovered that more than 50 federal, state, and local agencies ran hundreds of searches through Flock’s national network of surveillance data in connection with protest activity. In some cases, law enforcement specifically targeted known activist groups, demonstrating how mass surveillance technology increasingly threatens our freedom to demonstrate.
Flock Safety provides ALPR technology to thousands of law enforcement agencies. The company installs cameras throughout their jurisdictions, and these cameras photograph every car that passes, documenting the license plate, color, make, model and other distinguishing characteristics. This data is paired with time and location, and uploaded to a massive searchable database. Flock Safety encourages agencies to share the data they collect broadly with other agencies across the country. It is common for an agency to search thousands of networks nationwide even when they don’t have reason to believe a targeted vehicle left the region.
Via public records requests, EFF obtained datasets representing more than 12 million searches logged by more than 3,900 agencies between December 2024 and October 2025. The data shows that agencies logged hundreds of searches related to the 50501 protests in February, the Hands Off protests in April, the No Kings protests in June and October, and other protests in between.
The Tulsa Police Department in Oklahoma was one of the most consistent users of Flock Safety’s ALPR system for investigating protests, logging at least 38 such searches. This included running searches that corresponded to a protest against deportation raids in February, a protest at Tulsa City Hall in support of pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil in March, and the No Kings protest in June. During the most recent No Kings protests in mid-October, agencies such as the Lisle Police Department in Illinois, the Oro Valley Police Department in Arizona, and the Putnam County (Tenn.) Sheriff’s Office all ran protest-related searches.
While EFF and other civil liberties groups argue the law should require a search warrant for such searches, police are simply prompted to enter text into a “reason” field in the Flock Safety system. Usually this is only a few words–or even just one.
In these cases, that word was often just “protest.”
Crime does sometimes occur at protests, whether that’s property damage, pick-pocketing, or clashes between groups on opposite sides of a protest. Some of these searches may have been tied to an actual crime that occurred, even though in most cases officers did not articulate a criminal offense when running the search. But the truth is, the only reason an officer is able to even search for a suspect at a protest is because ALPRs collected data on every single person who attended the protest.
Search and Dissent
2025 was an unprecedented year of street action. In June and again in October, thousands across the country mobilized under the banner of the “No Kings” movement—marches against government overreach, surveillance, and corporate power. By some estimates, the October demonstrations ranked among the largest single-day protests in U.S. history, filling the streets from Washington, D.C., to Portland, OR.
EFF identified 19 agencies that logged dozens of searches associated with the No Kings protests in June and October 2025. In some cases the “No Kings” was explicitly used, while in others the term “protest” was used but coincided with the massive protests.
Law Enforcement Agencies that Ran Searches Corresponding with “No Kings” Rallies * Anaheim Police Department, Calif. * Arizona Department of Public Safety * Beaumont Police Department, Texas * Charleston Police Department, SC * Flagler County Sheriff’s Office, Fla. * Georgia State Patrol * Lisle Police Department, Ill. * Little Rock Police Department, Ark. * Marion Police Department, Ohio * Morristown Police Department, Tenn. * Oro Valley Police Department, Ariz. * Putnam County Sheriff’s Office, Tenn. * Richmond Police Department, Va. * Riverside County Sheriff’s Office, Calif. * Salinas Police Department, Calif. * San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office, Calif. * Spartanburg Police Department, SC * Tempe Police Department, Ariz. * Tulsa Police Department, Okla. * US Border Patrol
For example:
In Washington state, the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office listed “no kings” as the reason for three searches on June 15, 2025 [Note: date corrected]. The agency queried 95 camera networks, looking for vehicles matching the description of “work van,” “bus” or “box truck.”
In Texas, the Beaumont Police Department ran six searches related to two vehicles on June 14, 2025, listing “KINGS DAY PROTEST” as the reason. The queries reached across 1,774 networks.
In California, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office ran a single search for a vehicle across 711 networks, logging “no king” as the reason.
In Arizona, the Tempe Police Department made three searches for “ATL No Kings Protest” on June 15, 2025 searching through 425 networks. “ATL” is police code for “attempt to locate.” The agency appears to not have been looking for a particular plate, but for any red vehicle on the road during a certain time window.
But the No Kings protests weren’t the only demonstrations drawing law enforcement’s digital dragnet in 2025.
For example:
In Nevada’s state capital, the Carson City Sheriff’s Office ran three searches that correspond to the February 50501 Protests against DOGE and the Trump administration. The agency searched for two vehicles across 178 networks with “protest” as the reason.
In Florida, the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office logged “protest” for five searches that correspond to a local May Day rally.
In Alabama, the Homewood Police Department logged four searches in early July 2025 for three vehicles with “PROTEST CASE” and “PROTEST INV.” in the reason field. The searches, which probed 1,308 networks, correspond to protests against the police shooting of Jabari Peoples.
In Texas, the Lubbock Police Department ran two searches for a Tennessee license plate on March 15 that corresponds to a rally to highlight the mental health impact of immigration policies. The searches hit 5,966 networks, with the logged reason “protest veh.”
In Michigan, Grand Rapids Police Department ran five searches that corresponded with the Stand Up and Fight Back Rally in February. The searches hit roughly 650 networks, with the reason logged as “Protest.”
Someagencies have adopted policies that prohibit using ALPRs for monitoring activities protected by the First Amendment. Yet many officers probed the nationwide network with terms like “protest” without articulating an actual crime under investigation.
In a few cases, police were using Flock’s ALPR network to investigate threats made against attendees or incidents where motorists opposed to the protests drove their vehicle into crowds. For example, throughout June 2025, an Arizona Department of Public Safety officer logged three searches for “no kings rock threat,” and a Wichita (Kan.) Police Department officer logged 22 searches for various license plates under the reason “Crime Stoppers Tip of causing harm during protests.”
Even when law enforcement is specifically looking for vehicles engaged in potentially criminal behavior such as threatening protesters, it cannot be ignored that mass surveillance systems work by collecting data on everyone driving to or near a protest—not just those under suspicion.
Border Patrol’s Expanding Reach
As U.S. Border Patrol (USBP), ICE, and other federal agencies tasked with immigration enforcement have massively expanded operations into major cities, advocates for immigrants have responded through organized rallies, rapid-response confrontations, and extended presences at federal facilities.
USBP has made extensive use of Flock Safety’s system for immigration enforcement, but also to target those who object to its tactics. In June, a few days after the No Kings Protest, USBP ran three searches for a vehicle using the descriptor “Portland Riots.”
USBP also used the Flock Safety network to investigate a motorist who had “extended his middle finger” at Border Patrol vehicles that were transporting detainees. The motorist then allegedly drove in front of one of the vehicles and slowed down, forcing the Border Patrol vehicle to brake hard. An officer ran seven searches for his plate, citing “assault on agent” and “18 usc 111,” the federal criminal statute for assaulting, resisting or impeding a federal officer. The individual was charged in federal court in early August.
USBP had access to the Flock system during a trial period in the first half of 2025, but the company says it has since paused the agency’s access to the system. However, Border Patrol and other federal immigration authorities have been able to access the system’s data through local agencies who have run searches on their behalf or even lent them logins.
Targeting Animal Rights Activists
Law enforcement’s use of Flock’s ALPR network to surveil protesters isn’t limited to large-scale political demonstrations. Three agencies also used the system dozens of times to specifically target activists from Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), an animal-rights organization known for using civil disobedience tactics to expose conditions at factory farms.
Delaware State Police queried the Flock national network nine times in March 2025 related to DxE actions, logging reasons such as “DxE Protest Suspect Vehicle.” DxE advocates told EFF that these searches correspond to an investigation the organization undertook of a Mountaire Farms facility.
Additionally, the California Highway Patrol logged dozens of searches related to a “DXE Operation” throughout the day on May 27, 2025. The organization says this corresponds with an annual convening in California that typically ends in a direct action. Participants leave the event early in the morning, then drive across the state to a predetermined but previously undisclosed protest site. Also in May, the Merced County Sheriff’s Office in California logged two searches related to “DXE activity.”
As an organization engaged in direct activism, DxE has experienced criminalprosecution for its activities, and so the organization told EFF they were not surprised to learn they are under scrutiny from law enforcement, particularly considering how industrial farmers have collected and distributed their own intelligence to police.
The targeting of DxE activists reveals how ALPR surveillance extends beyond conventional and large-scale political protests to target groups engaged in activism that challenges powerful industries. For animal-rights activists, the knowledge that their vehicles are being tracked through a national surveillance network undeniably creates a chilling effect on their ability to organize and demonstrate.
Fighting Back Against ALPR
ALPR systems are designed to capture information on every vehicle that passes within view. That means they don’t just capture data on “criminals” but on everyone, all the time—and that includes people engaged in their First Amendment right to publicly dissent. Police are sitting on massive troves of data that can reveal who attended a protest, and this data shows they are not afraid to use it.
Our analysis only includes data where agencies explicitly mentioned protests or related terms in the “reason” field when documenting their search. It’s likely that scores more were conducted under less obvious pretexts and search reasons. According to our analysis, approximately 20 percent of all searches we reviewed listed vague language like “investigation,” “suspect,” and “query” in the reason field. Those terms could well be cover for spying on a protest, an abortion prosecution, or an officer stalking a spouse, and no one would be the wiser–including the agencies whose data was searched. Flock has said it will now require officers to select a specific crime under investigation, but that can and will also be used to obfuscate dubious searches.
For protestors, this data should serve as confirmation that ALPR surveillance has been and will be used to target activities protected by the First Amendment. Depending on your threat model, this means you should think carefully about how you arrive at protests, and explore options such as by biking, walking, carpooling, taking public transportation, or simply parking a little further away from the action. Our Surveillance Self-Defense project has more information on steps you could take to protect your privacy when traveling to and attending a protest.
For local officials, this should serve as another example of how systems marketed as protecting your community may actually threaten the values your communities hold most dear. The best way to protect people is to shut down these camera networks.
Everyone should have the right to speak up against injustice without ending up in a database.
When President Donald Trump told reporters on Sept. 5 he’d started looking at sending the National Guard to Portland, Oregon, he said it was because of something he saw on television.
He said the city was being destroyed by paid agitators. “What they’ve done to that place, it’s like living in hell,” he said, a comment that became an internet meme as some Portland residents juxtaposed it with tranquil images of the city.
Trump didn’t say which channel he watched; he said at one point he saw something “today” and at another “last night.”
The evening before, on Sept. 4, Fox News aired a two-and-a-half-minute segment spotlighting protests outside a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Portland. Similar footage aired the morning of Trump’s remarks. The president went on to announce Sept. 27 on Truth Social that he would send troops, saying that he was “authorizing Full Force, if necessary.”
He later said he’d told Oregon’s governor, Tina Kotek, that “unless they’re playing false tapes, this looked like World War II. Your place is burning down.”
ProPublica examined months of Fox News’ coverage and reviewed more than 700 video clips posted to social media by protesters, counterprotesters and others in the three months preceding the Sept. 4 broadcast.
The review found that the news network repeatedly provided a misleading picture of what was happening in Portland.
As The Guardian and The Oregonian/OregonLive have reported, Fox News on Sept. 4 used footage from the 2020 protests after the police killing of George Floyd and said it was from 2025. We found two clear cases from that night as well as one that seemed to match a scene filmed at a key site of the 2020 protests. Fox also mislabeled two other dates of actions shown on screen, and one broadcast implied that a protest from elsewhere was happening in Portland.
Fox News chyrons about Portland the week of Trump’s remarks carried phrases like “violent demonstrators,” “protesters riot,” “anti-I.C.E. Portland rioters” and “war-like protests.” One host said protesters were attacking federal officers.
This portrayal of protesters as routinely instigating violence or rioting was also misleading.
As ProPublica reported last week, most clashes between protesters and police before the Fox News segment did not result in any criminal charges or arrests alleging protesters committed violence. What’s more, based on news releases from federal and local authorities, charges and arrests for assault, arson or destruction of property were almost entirely confined to a period that ended the night of July 4.
Videos after that date captured numerous images of federal officers forcefully moving in on protesters without corresponding criminal charges alleging protester violence.
A spokesperson for Fox News did not respond to ProPublica’s requests for comment.
The Department of Homeland Security did not answer requests to comment on its officers’ tactics.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said of action on the ground in Portland: “This isn’t a peaceful protest that’s under control, like many on the left have claimed, it’s radical violence. President Trump is taking lawful action to protect federal law enforcement officers and address the out-of-control violence that local residents have complained about and Democrat leaders have failed to stop.”
Here’s how Fox News’ coverage of the Portland story was misleading.
Fox News Said It Was 2025. It Wasn’t.
Protests in 2020 in the wake of Floyd’s murder by a police officer attracted large, sometimes violent crowds to Portland — along with a federal law enforcement response authorized by Trump.
The protests outside the ICE facility have typically been far smaller. Still, Fox spliced footage from 2020 into its coverage this year and claimed it was from 2025.
The Fox News correspondent in the segment that aired the night Trump was watching TV said: “On this night in late June, police used tear gas.”
A Sept. 4 Fox News segment aired footage from 2020. Video by Joanna Shan/ProPublica
The accompanying image appears to be not from the ICE building but from the federal courthouse in downtown Portland, more than a mile away. A nearly identical scene was shown in a Fox News video five years earlier. Footage that aired Sept. 4, shot at a slightly different angle, blurs out spots where graffiti was visible on the building in Fox’s July 2020 broadcast.
Almost immediately after showing the courthouse scene, the segment cuts to another image as the correspondent says, “federal police used tear gas and flashbangs.”
On screen at that moment is a U.S. Navy veteran who was pepper-sprayed and repeatedly struck with a baton. But it didn’t happen in September 2025. The video was posted on social media on July 18, 2020.
A Sept. 4 Fox News segment aired a clip originally posted to X on July 16, 2020. Video by Joanna Shan/ProPublica
The Fox News segment about the ICE protests soon shows an American flag burning.
That image was posted on social media July 16, 2020.
The location: the base of a downtown Portland statue more than a mile away from the ICE building where protests are happening in 2025.
After mislabeling 2020 events as 2025, Fox’s Sept. 4 evening broadcast explicitly drew a connection between the two periods.
“The protest chaos, which began with riots aimed at social justice in 2020, has severely damaged Portland’s reputation,” the correspondent said.
Fox’s Sept. 4 broadcast explicitly drew a connection between 2025 and the 2020 protests after the police killing of George Floyd. Fox News. Screenshot by ProPublica.
The dramatic footage at this moment shows fires in the street and was broadcast on Fox on Aug. 19, 2020, the day after a crowd smashed through windows and set items on fire in the headquarters for the government of Multnomah County, where Portland is located.
Fox’s Sept. 4 broadcast used footage originally broadcast Aug. 19, 2020. Fox News. Screenshot by ProPublica.
We don’t know for certain which broadcast got Trump thinking about Portland. The White House did not respond to questions about what Trump watched. But the president said on Sept. 5 that what he’d seen about Portland on TV was “unbelievable.”
“I didn’t know that was still going on,” he said. “This has been going on for years.”
The reality: Portland’s 2020 social justice protests, which resulted in hundreds of arrests and continued for months, turned sporadic by early 2021. Protests in years since have led to occasional property damage, but nothing in Portland has matched the scale of events that followed Floyd’s death.
Portland police Chief Bob Day said at a Sept. 29 press conference that the city had been inaccurately portrayed through the lens of the protests in 2020 and 2021.
“What’s actually happening, and the response we’re seeing both from Portlanders and from the Portland Police Bureau,” Day said, “is not in line with that national narrative. And it is frustrating.”
A Riot That Wasn’t
In a Sept. 2 segment featuring the video from a day earlier, anchor Bill Hemmer said it shows “riots raging.” Anchor Trace Gallagher teased another Sept. 2 news segment by once again showing the video, saying, “It’s a riot outside a Portland ICE facility.”
On a Sept. 2 segment featuring Katie Daviscourt’s Sept. 1 video, anchor Bill Hemmer describes the Sept. 1 protests as “riots raging.” Videos show the violent moments that happened after federal police advanced on protesters. Fox News
The Sept. 4 segment shows Julie Parrish, an attorney for a neighbor of the ICE facility, accusing Portland police of saying, “Meh, we’re just gonna let violent rioters do this for 80 straight nights.”
The physical behavior of protesters that was captured on the video is not violent. The camera instead shows federal agents advancing on them. In the moments before officers tossed munitions into the crowd, videos show, one protester was blowing bubbles. The Portland police did not declare a riot, a legal designation that allows for an elevated police use of force. (They declared a riot just once, a police spokesperson said, on June 14.)
The Sept. 1 protest had “little to no energy,” according to an internal Portland police summary, before federal officers dispersed the crowd to collect a prop guillotine that had been brought. Katie Daviscourt, a Trump-aligned commentator who filmed the clips, noted on X that protesters were having dance parties and that their main problems were “not leaving restricted areas, burning a flag, and possessing a deadly object (guillotine).”
ProPublica found a similar pattern for the three months before Fox’s Sept. 4 broadcast: clashes that on most days and nights had no criminal allegations of protester violence to explain them.
After dozens of arrests and charges were announced in June through July 4, federal prosecutors accused just three people of crimes at the ICE building in the roughly two months leading up to Fox’s Sept. 4 broadcast.
During that same two-month time frame, ProPublica’s review found numerous instances of police using force: videos from more than 20 days or nights with federal officers grabbing, shoving, pepper-spraying, tackling, firing on or using other munitions on protesters.
No local arrests or federal criminal charges were announced on these days or nights, and only a handful of dates corresponded with incidents of protester aggression later asserted by federal authorities in their legal case for sending troops.
Asked whether Fox News accurately represented her footage, Daviscourt said: “I stand by my four months of accurate reporting.”
Parrish told ProPublica she had collected evidence that “shows ongoing and persistent activity” outside the facility that under statute and police directive “would be considered riotous, unlawful assembly and/or disorderly conduct.” She declined to share this evidence, saying it was privileged as part of her client’s file.
Her lawsuit on behalf of a neighbor living near the ICE facility, which sought to require police to enforce Portland’s noise ordinance, was dismissed.
The Reappearing Neighbor
A Sept. 5 “Fox & Friends” segment showed a neighbor from an apartment building confronting protesters over noise, shouting at protesters: “Turn that (bleep) down, it’s midnight! … We the people need sleep!”
Fox said it happened Tuesday, which would have been Sept. 2. Co-host Ainsley Earhardt said, “This has been going on for months now, but a lot of this since Labor Day,” as the video shown on screen sandwiches footage of the neighbor between other scenes from the Labor Day protest.
“This is a chaotic city,” co-host Brian Kilmeade said.
Fox News. Screenshot by ProPublica.
The next day, the clip of the neighbor appeared again on Fox News. This time, the network said the footage was from Wednesday, or Sept. 3.
Fox News. Screenshot by ProPublica.
In reality, the confrontation was captured on video months before. Daviscourt published the video on June 29 on X.
On the two September nights that Fox said the neighbor’s confrontation happened, ProPublica’s review found no videos of violent clashes posted on social media, and federal authorities announced no arrests.
For example, according to a Portland police email from 11:22 p.m. on Sept. 3: “There are still about 20 people hanging around but only 4 were even on the sidewalk in front of the building.”
Misrepresentations Continue After Trump’s Guard Order
On Sept. 28, the day Trump’s order was implemented, a Fox News broadcast played a clip of Kotek saying that Guard troops were not needed in Portland, then immediately cut to a clip of a hectic scene of protesters clashing with police.
“Wish she could see some of those images,” the anchor said. Sarcastically, as a co-anchor chuckled, she added: “Look at that. Just a peaceful protest.”
A small box on the screen showed the footage wasn’t from Oregon.
We’ll see where this goes from here, but for the moment, this order [PDF], issued by federal judge Karin Immergut still stands:
For the above reasons, this Court concludes that Plaintiffs have demonstrated that Defendants violated 10 U.S.C. § 12406 and the Tenth Amendment and satisfy the requirements for a permanent injunction. Therefore, this Court PERMANENTLY ENJOINS Defendants Pete Hegseth, the U.S. Department of Defense, Kristi Noem, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from […] federalizing and deploying members of the National Guard in Oregon
This has already happened once. And, for reasons that went mostly unexplained by two of three judges ruling in favor of the administration, a stay was issued that allowed it to continue exploring its martial law options in a city Trump has already admitted he might have been lied to about in terms of civil unrest.
The judges blocking the injunction basically said we have to trust the government, even when it’s obviously lying to us — something pointed out in the sharp dissent written by the third judge in the case (Susan Graber). Her dissent noted that most of the protest involved people wearing inflatable animal costumes (and, memorably, nothing at all). It also noted the absolute dearth of calls from law enforcement for backup when dealing with Portland’s (non-threatening) protesters. Her dissent also pointed out how none of this could possibly add up to the clear and present danger the administration has used to justify the deployment of National Guard troops.
Judge Immergut makes many of the same points: there’s no real threat, the protests have been almost exclusively peaceful, and the government has lied so often it should not be granted judicial deference. The 106-page order practically dares the Ninth Circuit to again ignore the facts on the ground when it is inevitably appealed by the federal government.
For example, here’s the judge taking the government down a few notches (and suggesting contempt findings are perhaps just as inevitable as the administration’s routine disregard for legal precedent) for pretending it didn’t have time to comply with the first order while it simultaneously scrambled troops from out-of-state in an attempt to skirt the expected restraining order:
Ordinarily, this Court would be inclined to accept Defendants’ explanation for their violation of the First TRO [temporary restraining order] given that “the first shift” at the Portland ICE facility commenced prior to this Court’s issuance of the First TRO. However, in light of the following facts, this Court is deeply troubled by Defendants’ continued deployment of Oregon National Guardsmen at the Portland ICE facility in violation of the First TRO. In the seven hours that Defendants took to “convey the message” of the First TRO “to people on the ground,” Defendants simultaneously “convey[ed] the message” to the U.S. Army Northern Command to send 200 of the federalized California National Guard personnel in Los Angeles to Portland. In other words, Defendants had time to order and coordinate the transport of federalized California National Guardsmen from Los Angeles to Portland but needed more time to communicate with the Oregon National Guardsmen at the Portland ICE facility.
The dissent to the Ninth Circuit opinion — combined with the administration’s attempt to circumvent the court order blocking deployment of Oregon National Guard troops by sending in a bunch of troops from other states — has resulted in a successful petition for an en banc hearing by Judge Susan Graber. That means the government is far less likely to see its bluster, outright lies, and end around plays entertained by a far more representative group of Ninth Circuit judges.
Furthermore, the alleged “escalation” cited by the Trump administration is simply a lie, as those who’ve been on the ground (Portland Police Bureau officials) have already (credibly, according to the court) testified:
Any riotous activity affecting the Portland ICE building peaked in June and had subsided for months before the President’s September 27, 2025 callout of the National Guard to Oregon. Regarding the nature of the crowd and its behavior, this Court finds the following. First, the size of the crowds decreased dramatically from June to September. Second, the number of officers briefly increased in response to the peak activity in mid-June, but it quickly subsided and remained at a low steady state until September 27, 2025. Third, the crowd was not directed by an organized group. Fourth, members of the crowd were rarely armed. Fifth and finally, the crowd’s shift in focus from the ICE building and the federal personnel in June to counter protester disputes in September demonstrates that much of the activity since mid-June had little to no effect on the ICE building and federal operations.
And these are things that were happening most of time, according to local law enforcement leaders:
From September 19 to September 28, immediately before the National Guard callout, there was “[n]othing much” going on outside the ICE building. Throughout the protests, PPB Commander Schoening testified that protesters wore “inflatable costumes.” Similarly, PPB Assistant Chief Dobson described “folks in costumes” at the ICE Facility, as well as “other almost festive-type events going on down there,” including “dance parties.”
Also: the government — the federal government, that is — can’t seem to stop lying:
To the extent that it lacks corroboration from other sources of evidence, the Court does not find reliable ICE/ERO Field Office Director Wamsley’s characterization of the damage to the Portland ICE Facility, which suggested damage was more extensive than that which is reflected in the rest of the record.
[…]
There is no credible evidence, however, that all the doors and windows of the ICE facility were broken. No other witness described damage to this degree, including Commander W.T., who was at the Portland ICE Facility every other week the entire summer. Additionally, Director Wamsley testified that she did not know whether there would be any photos of this damage or whether there was any documentation of the repair estimates.
It does it all the time, even when it has to know its lies will be exposed:
Furthermore, PPB reporting from June 14 show additional inconsistencies in the federal government’s version of events. PPB Captain Schoening’s activity log documented: “ICE calling saying they are barricaded in the building and fire lit. Difficult to get accurate information from them. What they say is happening is frequently contradicted by video feeds and subsequent activity. Air 1 shows no fire.” Also, shortly after they reported being barricaded, PPB observed an FPS employee exit a door and noted that FPS “ha[d] been using th[at] door regularly for employee ingress/egress. Th[at] door was reported earlier to be barricaded.”
You think that’s bad? Get ready for this one:
FPS [Federal Protective Services] reported a fire to PPB, but the “fire” turned out to be candles lit for a vigil set up by demonstrators.
In fact, most of the “violence” observed by federal officers was either unprovoked attacks by officers against protesters or instigated by Trump fans who rolled up on peaceful protests in hopes of picking a fight.
This Court finds that many reported disturbances at the ICE Facility after July 4 did not involve law enforcement at all. This Court also received evidence regarding disruptive behavior between individuals within the vicinity of the ICE building since June. Specifically, this Court received evidence regarding altercations between protesters and counter-protesters. Based on that evidence, this Court finds the following: Violence between protesters and counter-protesters occurred outside the Portland ICE building from June to September 27, 2025, but had, at most, a minimal effect on federal law enforcement’s protection of the building and federal personnel.
106 pages. Read it all. Lie after lie after lie from the administration and the small team of DOJ lawyers still willing to appease Trump, rather than seek justice:
As related to the time period immediately before the President’s callout of the National Guard, this Court heard testimony from FPS officers that PPB does not respond to their requests and that FPS stopped calling PPB altogether. The Court does not find this testimony to be credible.
[…]
The Court finds that there is no credible evidence that protest activities at the ICE facility created more than a minimal interference with Defendants’ ability to enforce Title 8 immigration laws in Portland. Director Wamsley testified herself that “altercations between protesters” do not “inhibit the execution of federal immigration law.”
There’s no “rebellion” happening here, the judge says, quoting the same law the administration is now abusing on a regular basis. There’s no concerted effort to seize control of federal property. There are no persistent attacks on federal or local law enforcement. There’s no organized group hoping to seize power. This is exactly the sort of thing this particular administration is incapable of handing: a persistent display of opposition that rarely, if ever, engages in the sort of behavior that might justify the deployment of military troops. The protesters are a fly the government can’t swat, whose mere existence is annoying enough the Commander-in-Chief and his immediate underlings have to constantly lie about to salvage their unconstitutional acts. And, despite all of their power, they’re losing this battle. Let’s see if the Ninth Circuit is willing to make this loss permanent.
President Donald Trump and officials in his administration say National Guard troops are needed in “War ravaged” Portland, Oregon, to protect a local Immigration and Customs Enforcement office that he described as being under siege.
But a ProPublica review found a wide gap between the reality on the ground and the characterizations by the president and the Department of Homeland Security, which said ICE facilities like Portland’s were under “coordinated assault by violent groups.”
We reviewed federal prosecutions and local arrests, internal protest summaries by the Portland Police Bureau, sworn testimony from local and federal officials as well as more than 700 video clips containing hours of footage posted to social media by protesters, counterprotesters and others. We focused on the three months before Sept. 5, when Trump made his first remarks about sending troops to Portland.
The evidence shows officers and protesters were indeed involved in incidents with varying levels of intensity on a little more than half the days. Protesters and counterprotesters exchanged blows at times. With some frequency, smoke and tear gas filled the air and shots from less-lethal police weapons could be heard.
There was no evidence of what could be termed a coordinated assault.
On most of the days or nights when officers and protesters clashed, local police and federal prosecutors ended up announcing no criminal arrests or charges — even though any number of crimes can be cited if someone commits violence against federal officers or property.
In addition, while protests continued across the summer, most of the alleged action by protesters that resulted in federal prosecution or local arrests ended two months before Trump said troops were needed in Portland.
While federal judges decide whether Portland protesters’ behavior constitutes a rebellion, ProPublica set out to examine the degree to which they were inciting unrest and the role that federal officers played. Video by Joanna Shan/ProPublica
A federal judge has temporarily blocked Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to Portland, saying that his administration had not proven that the protests can be fairly characterized as a rebellion, a risk of rebellion or an ongoing lack of order that prevents government officials from carrying out their duties.
Last week, the Justice Department argued in federal court that the last of these three categories — a breakdown of public order so severe that ICE officials can’t do their jobs — is what unfolded in Portland, justifying the president’s decision to federalize Oregon’s National Guard.
The judge is expected to issue a final ruling this week, and the case is expected to continue before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
If the courts go against Trump, he has another tool that could bring troops: the federal Insurrection Act, which experts say has a lower bar to being used and could involve active-duty military.
While the courts deliberate, ProPublica set out to examine the degree to which protesters were fomenting unrest and the role that federal officers themselves played.
Two policing experts who reviewed videos said federal officers at times used force inappropriately, echoing a Portland police official who testified in court that federal officers were instigating the chaos night after night.
Brian Higgins, former police chief in Bergen County, New Jersey, and a lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said some of what federal officers did in the video clips was not typical.
“My question would be, ‘If you used force, why did you not follow through with an arrest?’” Higgins said.
For instance, on Sept. 1, masked officers in combat gear responded to protesters who placed a prop guillotine on the sidewalk in front of the ICE building. The officers chased away the protesters with tear gas, smoke and other less-lethal weapons, grabbed the guillotine and hauled it inside. No criminal charges were announced.
“If there was nothing else to justify the officers coming out and doing this, you’ve got to scratch your head,” Higgins said.
Justice Department attorneys said in a court filing that the presence of the mock guillotine required federal officers “to exert physical force to keep order.” Videos show a protester blowing bubbles in the moment before federal police advanced on the crowd.
The scene of protesters dispersing and officers giving chase became the centerpiece of a Fox News broadcast on Sept. 4, the night before Trump said Portland’s protests had drawn his attention.
Our review showed that the force used against demonstrators had clearer provocation in initial protests. From the start of June to July 4, Portland police arrested 28 people, while federal prosecutors said they charged 22 with criminal offenses including arson and assault.
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, told ProPublica in a statement that the arson and assault charges show “this isn’t a peaceful protest that’s under control, like many on the Left have claimed, it’s radical violence.”
“President Trump is taking lawful action to protect federal law enforcement officers and address the out-of-control violence that local residents have complained about and Democrat leaders have failed to stop,” Jackson said.
But from July 5 through Sept. 4, the violence appeared to slow significantly. Portland police announced no arrests of protesters during this time, and federal prosecutors announced criminal charges against just three.
Only one was accused of a violent offense: felony assault for allegedly spitting in an officer’s face after an arrest for flying a drone around the building. The person pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor drone offense; the assault charge did not move forward. Another person’s misdemeanor charge, alleging failure to obey an officer, was also dropped. The case against the third person, another misdemeanor allegation of failing to obey, is proceeding.
In legal filings supporting the use of troops, federal officials described a handful of additional violent incidents from July 5 through Sept. 4. They said that protesters hit an officer with a stick on July 20, threw screws on the ICE facility’s driveway on July 24, pounded fists on vehicles on Aug. 9 and 11, threw rocks and a firework over the building’s fence on Aug. 16, injured two officers in an attack on Aug. 25 and provided directions online to an officer’s home on Aug. 28. No criminal charges were announced in these cases.
Source: Federal data represents criminal charges from news releases from the U.S. Attorney’s office. Portland police data shows arrests announced by the Portland Police Bureau. Note: Incidents shown by week.
During the roughly two months leading up to Trump’s Sept. 5 remarks, videos from more than 20 days or nights show federal officers firing on, grabbing, shoving, pepper-spraying, tackling or using other munitions on protesters. They deployed hissing cans of tear gas, sometimes sending clouds of the chemical irritant floating toward a nearby low-income apartment building.
No local arrests or federal criminal charges were announced on these days or nights, and only a handful of the dates corresponded with incidents of protester aggression asserted by federal authorities in their legal case for sending troops.
In most cases, videos from these events show masked federal officers using aggressive tactics that lack a clear reason.
On Aug. 13, an officer tackled a protester from behind. Rhein Amacher via Matthew Adams on X. Redaction in original video.
One federal officer runs and tackles an unsuspecting protester from behind on Aug. 13, causing what the man said in a legal filing was a head injury and concussion. The person was not charged with any crime.
In a clip from Sept. 6, the day after Trump’s remarks about Portland, a federal officer walking back into the ICE building turns, walks out of his way toward a protester and pushes the man so hard he falls to the ground and rolls over backward. The officer then continues inside the building.
On Sept. 6, an officer walked out of his way to push a protester so hard the person fell to the ground and rolled over. Rhein Amacher via X
Seth Stoughton, a law professor at the University of South Carolina who studies policing, reviewed videos from the protests at ProPublica’s request and said some of the federal officers’ uses of force looked “gratuitous.”
“Going out of your way to shove someone while you’re on the way back from arresting someone serves no purpose other than intimidation,” he said, “and intimidation is not a lawful government objective.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to emails requesting comment on its officers’ tactics.
Allegations of Protester Violence Subsided Over Time
There’s no doubt that the summertime protests were often confrontational, emotional and loud. Protesters, some dressed in black, often wore gas masks and shouted profanities at federal personnel. In June, some were also violent.
Five people faced arson charges after separate events on June 11 and 12 in which prosecutors said fires were set. One was in a trash can against the ICE building, while in another instance prosecutors said a protester used a flare to set fire to wood stacked against the front gate.
Videos from June 14 show a protester striking an officer in the head with a wooden stake that holds a protest sign. Another clip shows protesters using a stop sign as a battering ram on the front door of the ICE building.
On June 14, protesters rammed a stop sign into the ICE building’s front door. Throughout the month, protesters outside the facility were at times violent. Velly Ray via YouTube
Portland police declared a riot and made two arrests that day; federal prosecutors also said they charged three people with assault.
On June 24, a video shows someone waving a large knife at officers, being tased while running away and falling face first onto the sidewalk. Federal prosecutors filed charges against three people from that night’s protest: the person accused of wielding the knife, another accused of shining a laser pointer in an officer’s eye and one accused of hurling a gas canister back at officers, hitting one.
In addition, a Homeland Security news release from July 11 shows photos — without providing dates — of what the agency said were flyers posted in federal officers’ neighborhoods showing their names, images and addresses. The release said such information was also posted online.
Federal authorities have said protests led them to close the ICE building and work out of temporary office space from June 13 until July 7, after which the facility reopened. An analysis by Oregon Public Broadcasting found that immigration bookings continued, albeit at a slightly slower pace than average for Trump’s second term.
But violence initiated by protesters mostly subsided after July 4, based on charges or arrests announced by authorities and video reviewed by ProPublica.
The summer’s last criminal allegation of protester-on-officer violence — at least for anything other than spitting — came from a large Independence Day protest that led to federal criminal charges being filed against four people. They were individually accused of kicking an officer, throwing an incendiary device at officers, graffitiing the building and destroying fiber optic cables at the facility.
Evidence of protester violence for the rest of the summer is limited beyond the two misdemeanors and one felony charge announced by prosecutors.
In addition to the instances asserted by the government in court filings but not charged criminally, the FBI recently issued statistics that suggest dozens of people may have received citations. In the federal system, these are similar to traffic tickets and are generally issued for minor offenses. But when asked for details by ProPublica, the agency would not specify how many were issued or during what time frame.
Meanwhile, the use of force by federal officers continued.
Violence Without Violent Provocation
In most of the cases where videos captured police using crowd control tactics or other elements of force on protesters, there were neither announcements of criminal charges that followed nor allegations of protester violence made in the administration’s case for sending troops.
An official with the Federal Protective Service, which polices federal buildings, testified in court last week that federal officers use a loudspeaker to warn large groups to move. If they don’t, he said, officers physically move them.
Stoughton, the University of South Carolina law professor, said officers should use tear gas and other heavy chemical munitions sparingly when dispersing a crowd.
He added that many city police departments would be very hesitant to use these munitions “if it’s going to have this completely predictable environmental contamination on people who are utterly uninvolved with the protest.” In Portland, there’s an apartment building across the street from the ICE facility.
In addition, Stoughton said, police managing crowds ordinarily would first take time to engage people verbally, face to face, to try to get them to step aside.
“You typically don’t just want to jump right to higher levels of force,” Stoughton said, “because the point is to limit the potential for escalation.”
On two occasions shown on video, aggressive moves by officers appeared to be intended at least in part to allow them to seize protest symbols: a burned American flag that officers bagged and took indoors and the Sept. 1 display of a mock guillotine, an implement that 18th-century French revolutionaries used to decapitate royalty.
Video from the event captures someone playing a song by the Oakland hip-hop group The Coup with the chorus, “We got the guillotine, you better run.” An American flag can be seen burning at the guillotine’s base.
Stoughton said municipal police departments like those in Portland know they have to balance protesters’ First Amendment rights with public safety. “There is no more protected First Amendment interest than the ability to protest government action, to criticize the government,” he said.
A guillotine “can be purely symbolic,” he said. “That can be purely expressive.”
The Federal Protective Service incident commander that night, Will Turner, said in court that agents did not know the guillotine was a prop and thought it was real at the time. “We took it as an actual threat,” he said.
Objects like the guillotine or statements from protesters telling ICE agents to kill themselves appear to be protected speech, said Timothy Zick, a law professor at William & Mary Law School who studies public protest and the First Amendment, because they do not pose a true threat to officers.
It is “likely the sort of political hyperbole and heated rhetoric the Supreme Court has treated as protected speech,” Zick said. “The statements are likely to be considered part of a political protest.”
Notably, officers were sometimes able to clear crowds without aggressive tactics.
Footage on those occasions shows vehicles leaving the ICE compound without incident. Officers move out and onto the sidewalk, and protesters stay out of the way of the vehicles.
In one of those nonevents, as officers return to the ICE compound and the gates start to close, the thin crowd chants: “DHS — doesn’t have sex.”
A federal officer brings his hand to his mouth on the video.
He appears to blow a kiss.
What Happens Next
Trump’s order remains tied up in the courts.
Federal District Judge Karin Immergut blocked the deployment once, then again on Sunday, saying the Trump administration had “commandeered” the National Guard to quell protests that do not constitute a rebellion and had eased after a “high watermark of violence and unlawful activity” in June.
“The trial testimony produced no credible evidence of any significant damage to the ICE facility in the months before the President’s callout and no credible evidence that ICE was unable to execute immigration laws,” the judge wrote. “Protesters frequently blocked the driveway of the ICE building, but the evidence also showed that federal law enforcement officers were able to clear the driveway.”
Immergut said the deployment violated the 10th Amendment, which says that powers not given to the federal government by the Constitution are reserved to states. The judge said Trump “had no lawful basis to federalize these Oregon National Guardsmen.”
Earlier in the appeals process, two appellate judges who upheld Trump’s decision said protester violence from earlier in June was a relevant concern that must be considered in the case.
A panel of judges from the 9th Circuit is expected to hear arguments from both sides next.
On the morning of Jan. 7, Jesús Ramírez and other day laborers huddled in a Home Depot parking lot in Bakersfield, California, hoping for work.
Suddenly, they were surrounded by U.S. Homeland Security vehicles.
One agent demanded Ramírez show his papers. When he pulled out his wallet, the agent “snatched” it and took his ID without asking questions, Ramírez said.
“It was clear to me the agents did not know who I was,” Ramírez, 64, said in a court filing translated from Spanish. “They did not show me any document or have a warrant for me.”
He was among 78 people arrested during an immigration enforcement mission, “Operation Return to Sender,” carried out less than two weeks before Donald Trump returned to the White House.
Note the date: January 7. Trump had already been elected but was not yet in office. That would be the other person Bovino is willing to answer to, even if that person isn’t actually his boss at that point in time.
Bovino launched “Return to Sender,” the mission to California’s Central Valley earlier this year, without approval from the Biden administration, the Atlantic magazine reported.
[A] CalMatters investigation, in partnership with Evident and Bellingcat, found that Border Patrol officials misrepresented the very basics of their high-profile, large-scale immigration raid. Data obtained from U.S. Customs and Border Protection reveal that Border Patrol had no prior knowledge of criminal or immigration history for 77 of the 78 people arrested.
In a spreadsheet provided by the agency, under “Criminal History,” all but one entry contains the following passage: “Criminal and/or immigration history was not known prior to the encounter.”
Bovino is now in Chicago, far from the southern border he’s used to patrolling. But he’s still the same old Bovino — an asshat with a bad haircut who thinks no one can tell him what to do, not even federal court judges.
After plaintiffs secured a restraining order restricting the use of crowd control projectiles against people engaged in protected speech, Bovino immediately ensured the court order was violated. And he decided he should be the person to do it. The court order said tear gas couldn’t be used until after clear orders to disperse had been ignored. Bovino said fuck it and hurled tear gas into a peaceful crowd that had done nothing more than stand a few feet away from Bovino and other immigration enforcement officers.
That’s from the filing [PDF] submitted by the plaintiffs, asking Judge Sara Ellis to take note of this blatant violation of her court order. And if you don’t care for still photos, here’s a recording of Bovino violating the court order:
U.S. District Court Judge Sara Ellis ordered Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino, who has led a series of increasingly aggressive raids across Chicago and the suburbs, to appear in her courtroom in person at 10 a.m. Tuesday.
Ellis’ order came less than 24 hours after Bovino fired tear gas at a crowd during an aggressive raid in Little Village. Bovino accompanied agents on raids in Little Village Wednesday and Thursday.
But we’ll have to wait and see how this will play out. Bovino certainly acts like he’s above the law. Not only that, he states to journalists that he’s above the law. First, he insulted the judge. And then he basically said he’d continue to ignore court orders because they’re not the boss of him (paraphrasing). This is from the same filing that includes the screenshot of Bovino’s tear gas tossing:
[M]ultiple declarants and numerous video clips demonstrate that the crowd in Little Village was peaceful at the moment Defendant Bovino started the conflict by launching cannisters of tear gas into the assembled crowd, and that no warnings or dispersal orders were given before he did so.
[…]
Following the incident, Defendant Bovino was interviewed by a reporter. In that interview, Defendant Bovino appears uninjured. He says in response to questions words to the effect of, “Did Judge Ellis get hit in the head by a rock like I did this morning?” Defendant Bovino continues saying something like, “maybe she needs to see what that’s like before she gives an order like that.”
The filing notes Bovino does not appear to be injured. And the government hasn’t filed any declaration backing Bovino’s claims.
But that’s not all Bovino said during that interview. He literally stated he was not obligated to follow orders given by federal courts:
In that same interview discussed above, Defendant Bovino also stated, “I take my orders from the executive branch,” suggesting disdain for this Court’s authority to enjoin his unlawful conduct.
Asked whether firing from elevated positions or above the waist violates DHS policy, Bovino insisted, “It doesn’t matter where you fire from … that is a less lethal device for area saturation.” As for shots striking protesters above the waist, he said, “If someone strays into a pepper ball, then that’s on them. Don’t protest and don’t trespass.“
OK. That’s fucked up. This is a grown-ass man using a rhetorical device most famously deployed by two elementary school students in a cartoon. Worse, Bovino isn’t going to wait for people to “stray” into the line of his unlawful fire. He and his boys are going to instigate violence and reverse engineer justifications for their actions.
As the filing notes, the DHS claimed a “mob” surrounded officers and threw projectiles, including “commercial artillery shell fireworks.” The lawyers handling this case don’t mince words when responding to the government’s assertions:
The statement is a lie.
If Bovino bothers to show up in court, there will be plenty more of those. Given this inevitability, courts need to consider engaging in extreme measures to ensure compliance. The “presumption of regularity” no longer exists under Trump. The entire administration has demonstrated it believes it answers to no one — an internal rot that has infected everything it touches. In the past, people like Bovino would be considered aberrations: rogue officials in need of a good firing. These days, Bovino is the rule, rather than the exception. And this nation’s courts need to respond to this “new normal” accordingly.
Two Trump-appointed federal judges just decided that facts don’t matter when the President wants to send the military into American cities.
Donald Trump declared Portland a “war-ravaged” city requiring military intervention based on a few anti-ICE protests and imagery from five years ago on Fox News that he apparently thought was happening now. The actual threat? Police reports from the days before his deployment order show “approximately 8-15 people at any given time out front of ICE. Mostly sitting in lawn chairs and walking around.” One officer noted the protesters had “low energy” and “minimal activity.”
So Trump ordered military deployment against people in lawn chairs based on old Fox News footage. A Trump-appointed district court judge quickly issued an injunction, calling out the absolute insanity of military deployment based on complete fiction. She noted that Trump’s legal justification—that he was “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States”—was “simply untethered to the facts.”
But two judges on the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court just dissolved that injunction, effectively ruling that the President gets to define his own reality when deploying troops against American citizens. And a third judge, Susan Graber, is calling out her colleagues in scathing terms for abandoning core constitutional principles.
While the district court cited this highly deferential standard, Oregon, 2025 WL 2817646, at *9, it erred by failing to apply it. Instead, the district court substituted its own assessment of the facts for the President’s assessment of the facts. This is the opposite of the significantly deferential standard of review that applies to the President’s decision to invoke § 12406(3) and federalize members of the National Guard.
The majority goes through a longer list of basically every time the small group of protesters got too loud or annoying for ICE, without bothering to explore if any of those protests violated the law, or actually got in the way of the execution of the law. It also dinged the (again, Trump-appointed) district court judge for actually paying attention to what Donald Trump was lying about on social media in making her determination:
Second, the district court erred by placing too much weight on statements the President made on social media. Oregon, 2025 WL 2817646, at *11. The district court interpreted President Trump characterizing Portland as “War ravaged,” as the equivalent of the President “ignoring the facts on the ground.” Id. As such, the district court relied on these statements to disregard other facts that do “reflect[] a colorable assessment of the facts and law within a range of honest judgment.”
The majority, made up of two Trump-appointed Ninth Circuit judges: Ryan Nelson and Bridget Bade, insist that Trump’s lies should simply outweigh what anyone can plainly see with their own two eyes. It’s somewhat ridiculous.
And the third judge on the panel, Susan Graber, calls out the bullshit of her colleagues, in pretty strong language, while suggesting the rest of her colleagues on the Ninth Circuit should do an en banc review as soon as possible:
In the weeks preceding the President’s September 27 social media post proclaiming that Portland was “War ravaged” and authorizing Secretary Hegseth to deploy federalized Oregon National Guard members, demonstrations in Portland were non-disruptive and small. Notwithstanding the turbulent events that had occurred several months earlier, the record contains no evidence whatsoever that, on September 27, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) was unable either to protect its Portland facility or to execute the immigration laws it is charged with enforcing. But, in the statute invoked here, Congress has authorized the President to call up the National Guard only to repel a foreign invasion, quell a rebellion, or overcome an inability to execute the laws. Consequently, no legal or factual justification supported the order to federalize and deploy the Oregon National Guard.Given Portland protesters’ well-known penchant for wearing chicken suits, inflatable frog costumes, or nothing at all when expressing their disagreement with the methods employed by ICE, observers may be tempted to view the majority’s ruling, which accepts the government’s characterization of Portland as a war zone, as merely absurd. But today’s decision is not merely absurd. It erodes core constitutional principles, including sovereign States’ control over their States’ militias and the people’s First Amendment rights to assemble and to object to the government’s policies and actions.
She’s exactly right. The ruling is an all-out attack on multiple things that have been considered settled US legal issues. The idea that the President gets to call out the National Guard to shut down some political protests is absolutely insane. The district court called it out, as does Judge Graber.
As she notes, it’s both obvious and important that there is no fucking “war zone” in Portland:
The district court’s factual findings, which the government does not challenge on appeal, and which are not clearly erroneous in any event, fully resolve this issue. In the two weeks leading up to the President’s September 27 social media post, there had not been a single incident of protesters’ disrupting the execution of the laws. Oregon, 2025 WL 2817646, at *10. I repeat: not a single incident for two weeks. Here are summaries from police reports for the five days preceding the President’s social media post.
September 22: Approx. 7-10 people. No calls.
September 23: Few people. No activity.
September 24: Approx. 10 people. No calls.
September 25: Approx. 20 people. No calls.
September 26: Approx. 15 people. Energy low, minimal activity. No incidents.
A police officer’s report from September 26 stated: “Throughout the day we observed approximately 8-15 people at any given time out front of ICE. Mostly sitting in lawn chairs and walking around.”
It is hard to understand how a tiny protest causing no disruptions could possibly satisfy the standard that the President is unable to execute the laws. The facts at issue in Newsom—significant, violent protests by hundreds of people in several locations the day before and the day of the President’s invocation of the statute—could not be further from the facts here—small gatherings in one location with “no activity” or “minimal activity,” low energy, and no calls for assistance for weeks.
While the majority called out random incidents of one or two protestors getting rowdy, Judge Graber says (1) those happened months ago and (2) none of them appeared to get in the way of ICE continuing to do its job. As she notes:
The legal basis for this argument is unclear.The trigger for federalizing the National Guard is an inability to execute the laws, not staffing difficulties that fall short of demonstrably resulting in an inability to execute the laws. The government has not explained how its purported staffing troubles were causing an inability to execute the laws on September 27. As explained above, the protests themselves—small, uneventful, low-energy—were not preventing execution of the laws at that time.The most that can be said is that, because FPS officers were stretched thin, if protests were to flare up in the future and if staffing woes were to lead to insufficient staffing, then an inability to execute the laws might arise at some hypothetical future time. But, as also explained above, subsection three of the statute requires a present-day inability to execute the laws; fear of a future inability is not enough. Nor could staffing difficulties alone support an inability to execute the laws; otherwise, the President could direct scores of FPS officers to a location with minimal security issues and then claim authority to call up the National Guard because those officers are needed elsewhere. In assessing whether the President had a colorable basis for concluding that the statutory requirements were met, we must consider the actual situation being addressed by the FPS officers.
She also dings her colleagues in the majority for being so desperate to help out Donald Trump that they made up an argument the DOJ never actually made:
The majority’s order spells out an argument that the government does not make, presumably because the government recognizes the lack of factual support. The argument in the majority’s order proceeds as follows. FPS has 776 officers, but only 497 officers are trained to protect federal buildings. Robert Cantu, the regional FPS director, asserted that, from June through September, “115 FPS officers have had to deploy to Portland.” The majority’s order first assumes that all 115 officers—nearly a quarter of the agency’s officers with relevant training— were stationed in Portland in late September. The majority’s order next reasons that such a diversion supports an inference that Portland is a significant source of staffing woes.
But that argument impermissibly adds facts to Director Cantu’s vague, carefully worded assertion. Crediting his assertion, we know that a total of 115 officers from elsewhere were deployed in Portland during the preceding four months. The record contains no information about how many officers were in Portland at any given time. For all we know, FPS sent a different 8 officers to Portland every week for 14 or 15 weeks, meaning that Portland’s drain on FPS’s staff from elsewhere on any particular day was 8 people, not 115. Indeed, the only description in the record of a “[s]urge” in officers was the deployment of 8 officers. The fact that there were 26 FPS officers on duty on September 6, as the majority’s order emphasizes, Order at 27 n.13, says nothing about whether any or all of those individuals were from somewhere other than Portland. The record does not reveal the number of local FPS officers
Even if we assume that FPS deployed all 115 officers in June, it strains credulity to assume that all 115 of them remained in Portland for four months. What were they doing during the month of August, for example, when there was only a single incident at the ICE facility during the entire month? The record does not tell us. Indeed, the record does not shine light on the most pertinent information: in the days leading up to September 27, how many FPS officers from elsewhere were in Portland? The only hint in the record is a reference to some officers from elsewhere leaving Portland and returning to their home stations.
She also mocks the idea that the National Guard deployment can be justified in response to “a rebellion”—an argument the majority decision didn’t even grapple with, saying they didn’t need to, given Trump can win with or without rebellion by just pointing (without evidence) to his supposed inability to execute the laws. But the lying about the rebellion kinda matters:
As an initial matter, the record contains no evidence that the sporadic violent events occurring over a handful of days during four months of otherwise peaceful protests were in any way organized. For example, there is no evidence of leadership, organizational structure, premeditation, or an overarching plan.
Even putting aside that deficiency, nothing in the record suggests that, on September 27, there was a rebellion or a danger of one. The same reasons given in Part I-A-1, above, apply here. In the two weeks leading up to September 27, there was not a single incident of “force and arms” against ICE’s personnel or facility. And going back more than two months, the record contains only “evidence of sporadic violence against federal officers and property damage to a federal building.”
Even considering all four months, the events as a whole did not rise to the level of an “unusual and extreme exigenc[y]” constituting a “rebellion.” Newsom, 141 F.4th at 1051. On almost every day during the four months preceding September 27, the record discloses ordinary political protests in Portland. Ordinary protests—quintessential First Amendment activity—obviously do not constitute a rebellion. See Illinois, 2025 WL 2937065, at *6 (“Nor does a protest become a rebellion merely because of sporadic and isolated incidents of unlawful activity or even violence committed by rogue participants in the protest. Such conduct exceeds the scope of the First Amendment, of course, and law enforcement has apprehended the perpetrators accordingly. But because rebellions at least use deliberate, organized violence to resist governmental authority, the problematic incidents in this record clearly fall within the considerable daylight between protected speech and rebellion.”)
And while the majority tried to suggest that small rebellions like the Whiskey Rebellion, Shay’s Rebellion, or Fries’s Rebellion mean it’s fine to call the protests a rebellion, Judge Graber calls bullshit:
Those rebellions shared several salient characteristics, including a large number of participants relative to the population and to available law enforcement, a wide geographic scope, evident organization and leadership, widespread use of arms, intense ferocity, and the creation of extreme difficulty restoring control by means of ordinary law enforcement.
What occurred in Portland differed in every dimension. As already noted, there is no evidence of organization or leadership, widespread use of arms, ferocity, or difficulty exerting control by ordinary means. In addition, the population of the Portland metropolitan area exceeds two and a half million, spread across nearly 6,700 square miles. U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the United States and Puerto Rico: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2024; U.S. Census Bureau, State and Metropolitan Area Data Book: 2010, at 110. At their height, the protests in Portland have involved 200 people, or about 0.008% of the population. And they have taken place exclusively around a single city block, or approximately 0.00002% of the Portland metro area. The few people who did commit sporadic acts of violence have been arrested, processed, and charged by regular law enforcement forces.
Finally, she points out that the government hasn’t shown what injury it will incur if its invasion is not stayed while the courts consider further evidence, while there is pretty fucking clear evidence that the people of Portland will be harmed by an invasion of the US military.
Plaintiff City of Portland has a strong interest in preserving the peace. As the district court found, the deployment of troops in Portland is likely (if not certain) to aggravate the situation at the ICE building. Id. Finally, nearby businesses have economic interests that are likely to be harmed by the deployment of troops.
Judge Graber, who is not someone prone to hyperbole, closes by calling out how fucking anti-American all of this is:
The Founders recognized the inherent dangers of allowing the federal executive to wrest command of the State militia from the States. Congress authorized the President to deploy the National Guard only in true emergencies— to repel an invasion, to suppress a rebellion, or to overcome an inability to execute the laws. 10 U.S.C. § 12406. Congress did not authorize deployment in merely inconvenient circumstances, and Congress unquestionably did not authorize deployment for political purposes. Article III commands that we enforce those limits. The majority’s order abdicates our judicial responsibility, permitting the President to invoke emergency authority in a situation far divorced from an enumerated emergency.
And she rightly calls on “partisans” to imagine how they would feel if a future President rolled out the National Guard over other issues. She knows, we know, and they all know, that the MAGA crowd would totally freak the fuck out if a Democratic President sought to federalize the National Guard and invade American cities and towns in any other circumstance.
Today’s President seeks to bring troops into one set of States to enforce one set of laws; a future President may seek to bring troops into a different set of States to enforce a different set of laws. Partisans who cheer this President’s use of troops to protect personnel who are enforcing federal immigration laws would do well to consider whether they would be equally pleased if a future President uses troops to protect personnel who are enforcing laws that they vehemently dislike. Cf. Greer v. Spock, 424 U.S. 828, 839 (1976) (noting “the American constitutional tradition of a politically neutral military establishment under civilian control”).
We don’t even have to speculate. For years, the MAGA world has spread a nonsense, debunked conspiracy theory about how a standard military training exercise was actually a plan to invade Texas and take away guns. Judge Graber is just pointing out that now that this is actually happening, it’s pretty fucking crazy that MAGA supports it.
Bunch of hypocrites.
Judge Graber calls on her colleagues to gather to overturn the majority’s ruling and issues a stark plea to those dismayed by this ridiculous result:
We have come to expect a dose of political theater in the political branches, drama designed to rally the base or to rile or intimidate political opponents. We also may expect there a measure of bending—sometimes breaking—the truth. By design of the Founders, the judicial branch stands apart. We rule on facts, not on supposition or conjecture, and certainly not on fabrication or propaganda. I urge my colleagues on this court to act swiftly to vacate the majority’s order before the illegal deployment of troops under false pretenses can occur. Above all, I ask those who are watching this case unfold to retain faith in our judicial system for just a little longer.
And it appears that at least one of her colleagues has already accepted the challenge. An unnamed judge on the Ninth Circuit has already requested a vote for an en banc rehearing before Portland or Oregon even asked for one. The court has already asked the parties to file briefs on this by tomorrow at midnight. (As a reminder, because the Ninth Circuit is ridiculously large and no one has the political will to break it up into multiple circuits, unlike other circuits where “en banc” means all the judges, in the Ninth it’s a random set of 10 judges, so it can be a bit of a crap shoot).
Either way, this is yet another fast-moving case in which the Trump administration and its DOJ are demanding crazy things, and (mostly Trump-appointed) judges are pretending it’s normal. Hopefully, the court agrees to do a quick en banc hearing and shuts this nonsense down.
“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command…. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed–if all records told the same tale–then the lie passed into history and became truth.” —George Orwell, 1984
This past weekend witnessed what may have been the largest single-day political protest in American history. The “No Kings” demonstrations drew an estimated 5.2 to 8.2 million people across all 50 states (according to G. Elliott Morris), with massive crowds filling the streets of major cities and surprisingly robust turnouts even in small, rural communities that voted overwhelmingly for Trump.
The protests were overwhelmingly peaceful—so much so that police in New York City, Austin, and San Diego all reported zero protest-related arrests, which is frankly remarkable given the scale of participation.
There were similar reports in other cities, including Washington DC, which is kinda notable given that the last time the MAGA crowd “protested” in DC, people died, and eventually over 1,200 people were convicted (even if Trump later pardoned them all).
Before the protests even happened, Republican politicians like House Speaker Mike Johnson preemptively labeled them a “hate America rally” filled with potential “terrorists.” They were proven spectacularly wrong by the peaceful nature of the demonstrations, but their fear-mongering served its purpose: justifying the future mobilization of National Guard units in multiple states for what turned out to be entirely peaceful gatherings.
You’d think these basic facts would be hard to dispute. After all, millions of people witnessed the events firsthand, millions more saw the coverage, and the photographic and video evidence is overwhelming. But if you listened to Donald Trump’s response, you’d think you were living in an alternate reality.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump dismissed the massive demonstrations with a series of statements that were so obviously false they’d make a carnival barker blush:
Trump on No Kings: "It's a joke. I looked at the people. They are not representative of this country. And I looked at all the brand new signs I guess paid for by Soros and other radical left lunatics. We're checking it out. The demonstrations were very small. And the people were whacked out."
“I think it’s a joke. I looked at the people, they’re not representative of this country, and I looked at all the brand new signs paid for, I guess it was paid for by Soros and other radical left lunatics. It looks like it was, we’re checking it out. The demonstrations were very small, very ineffective, and the people who are whacked out. Would you look at those people. They’re not representative of the people of our country.”
Let’s break this down. “Very small”? We’re talking about potentially the largest single-day protest in American history. “Very ineffective”? The turnout exceeded even the organizers’ expectations and every previous protest against Trump including both the 2017 Women’s March and the earlier No Kings march a few months ago.
“Not representative of this country”? When millions of Americans from all 50 states show up, including in deep red rural areas, that’s about as representative as it gets. Anyone who looked at the photos from these protests could tell you that they were absolutely representative of this country. Indeed, there was a feeling of joy. People were joking and dancing and singing. If anything, the crowd skewed older, but that’s shocking in its own way, given that protests tend to be a younger person’s game.
Let’s go to just a tiny bit of the evidence: these were massive crowds, all over the country (including deeply Republican areas), with crowds that were incredibly representative of America:
This is Boise, Idaho one of the most Republican states in the US joining millions of protestors. The people have had enough of the Trump regime. #3E #NoKings #50501Movement #indivisible #wearetheflood
Democracy in action, Illinois.Proud of our state for peacefully showing up and speaking out together in one voice to fight back against Donald Trump’s takeover of our democracy.
World War 2 veterans, the original antifa, took part in the nationwide protests against the fascist Trump regime. #3E #NoKings #50501Movement #indivisible #wearetheflood
Provincetown has a year-round population of 3600.I'm guessing there were at least 1000 at No Kings today.Sorry I managed not to get the people in the inflatable lobster suits!
Protestors march through downtown Montgomery, Alabama on Oct. 18, 2025 holding a banner saying "No Kings In America." The protest drew more than 600 people. (Ralph Chapoco/Alabama Reflector)
No Kings Denver speaker Joe Salazar (fmr Dem state rep) tells me they estimate 25-30k gathered in Denver today, similar to the No Kings protest earlier this year. This view is from photographer Cheney Orr for the New York Times. #copolitics
I could go on. But you get the point. The point that Donald Trump is desperately trying to make sure you ignore or disbelieve. The evidence is overwhelming. From massive crowds in Chicago to rural communities in Iowa to even Trump’s own backyard in Florida, Americans showed up en masse for peaceful protests that were anything but “very small.” Anyone with functioning eyeballs can see this.
But the lies don’t stop there. Trump also claimed without evidence that the signs were paid for by George Soros and “radical left lunatics,” feeding into the same tired conspiracy theories his supporters always trot out when faced with genuine grassroots opposition they can’t explain away. And, once again, every accusation is a confession. The only ones known for buying and paying for signs at rallies are… the GOP.
Trump made it quite clear that his only motivation in governing is to try to attack those he perceives as disloyal, because rather than attempting to address the actual protests or the complaints, he posted to social media an AI-generated video of himself wearing a crown, flying a fighter jet labeled “KING TRUMP,” and dumping what was clearly meant to be load of shit on protesters. Most media outlets, in their typical both-sides fashion, euphemistically described this as “brown liquid” or “brown substance,” apparently too squeamish to call out the obvious scatological nature of what Trump was depicting himself doing to American citizens exercising their First Amendment rights.
Honestly, the video was pathetic in multiple ways. It really felt like the kind of thing that a silly “resistance” type account might post to mock Trump, and there he was posting it himself. And it’s quite telling that his response to the “no kings” rally goes straight to his instinctual “if they say no kings, then I’m going to mock them by saying ‘yes, I want to be king, and yes, I want to shit on them.’“
That serves only one purpose: to excite his ever-dwindling set of immature fanboys on social media. It doesn’t show leadership. It doesn’t show himself as responsive to his constituents. It just makes him look like a sad, pathetic old man whose only move is to try to piss off the “right” people.
Meanwhile, if you want to talk about “hating America,” it’s hard to top the image of a president fantasizing about literally dumping shit on millions of his own citizens for the “crime” of peaceful protest.
I feel like we need to emphasize this: the President posted a video of himself dumping shit on people peacefully protesting. When Hillary Clinton suggested some of Trump’s followers were “deplorables,” it was a months-long story. When Biden was misleadingly and incorrectly accused of calling Trump supporters “garbage,” it was a constant news story. But when Trump literally fantasizes about dumping shit on people exercising their constitutional rights, it’s euphemized away, played down, and discounted.
This is what we’re dealing with: a president who can look at the largest protest in American history and declare it “very small” with a straight face, while the media largely lets him get away with it. It’s the kind of brazen reality-denial that would make Orwell’s Ministry of Truth proud.
It’s no surprise that Trump lies—we’ve known that for years. What’s insidious is how the lies are presented as just another side of a “he said, she said” story, rather than what they actually are: easily verifiable falsehoods about events that millions of people witnessed with their own eyes.
These aren’t just lies for their own sake. In that same Air Force One interview, Trump talked about invoking the Insurrection Act, falsely claiming that 50% of presidents have used it (they have not) and that “everybody agrees you’re allowed to use that” (they do not).
Trump: "I'm allowed as you know as president, like 50% of the presidents have used the Insurrection Act. Everybody agrees you're allowed to use that and there is no more court cases, there is no more anything. We're trying to do it in a nicer manner, but we can always use the Insurrection Act."
The lies about “very small” protests and “radical left lunatics” funded by Soros aren’t random bullshit—they’re the predicate for deploying military force against American cities. Trump is constructing an alternative reality that justifies authoritarian responses to constitutionally protected dissent.
The president is openly lying about easily verifiable facts that millions of people witnessed, and those lies are being used to justify sending in the fucking military. When millions of Americans exercise their constitutional right to peaceful protest, Trump’s response is to fantasize about dumping shit on them and then claim they don’t exist.
This is a direct assault on the concept of shared reality itself, and it’s being used to justify authoritarian crackdowns on dissent. The Orwell quote at the top isn’t literary flourish—it’s a roadmap that Trump is following step by step.
The evidence of our eyes and ears tells us that millions of Americans peacefully demonstrated this weekend. Trump told us to reject that evidence and accept his version of reality where massive protests are “very small” and peaceful demonstrators are “terrorists” requiring military intervention.
We are watching the systematic destruction of the idea that objective reality exists, and the media’s response is to treat it like just another political disagreement, another political horse race over who came out of this looking the best. That’s not journalism—it’s complicity.
This is not a drill. This is happening now. When a president can lie about events witnessed by millions and use those lies to justify military action against peaceful protesters, we’ve crossed a line that democracies don’t typically come back from. The question isn’t whether Trump is lying—the evidence is incontrovertible. The question is whether our institutions, our media, and ultimately we as citizens are going to allow him to get away with it.
Because if we do, then Orwell’s warning will have become our reality, and “the lie will have passed into history and become truth.”
In what may be the most accidentally honest moment of his presidency, Donald Trump just admitted what we’ve been documenting for months: “We took the freedom of speech away.”
Yes, that’s literally what he said:
For those who’ve been following Trump’s systematic assault on the First Amendment—which we’ve covered extensively at Techdirt—this admission is remarkable not for its content, but for its candor. Here’s a president whose supporters claimed he would “bring free speech back” explicitly acknowledging that his administration has done the opposite.
He said this at the White House’s bizarre roundtable on antifa, which involved a bunch of serial fabulists and conspiracy theorists feeding the President’s delusional need to justify using the military on American citizens who live in states that didn’t vote enough for him.
If you can’t see the video, the transcript is pretty straightforward:
We made it one year penalty for inciting riots.We took the freedom of speech awaybecause that’s been through the courts and the courts said you have freedom of speech, but what has happened is when they burn a flag it agitates and irritates crowds.
I’ve never seen anything like it on both sides. And you end up with riots so we’re going on that basis.
We’re looking at it from not from the freedom of speech, which I always felt strongly about, but never passed the courts. This is what they do, is they incite… when you burn an American flag, you incite tremendous violence. We have many examples of it. Many, many examples of it. And it’s actually down on tape and you see things happen that just don’t happen unless it’s the flag that’s burning.
Well, thank you for admitting what we all know is true.
Now, of course, this is a bit of typical Trumpian word salad, but we can parse what he’s trying to say in a manner that likely reveals what the circle of suck-ups around him have been telling him in order to justify their deeply censorial, deeply authoritarian desires.
Back in August he signed an executive order, which has no legal basis for anything, claiming that federal prosecutors should try to figure out a way to prosecute people for burning the flag by arguing that it’s incitement to imminent violence. This is because there is a widely recognized exception to the First Amendment which is “incitement to imminent lawless action.”
The theory, such as it is, goes like this: while flag burning is normally protected speech, Trump’s handlers think they can circumvent that protection by arguing that flag burning constitutes incitement to imminent lawless action.
Normally “incitement” is very, very limited to situations where someone points at someone else and tells people “go kill that person” or something of that nature. It has to be clear, directed, and involving “imminent lawless action” meaning right after the words are said.
Flag burning is not that. And, for all his talk about “never passed the courts,” this has been tested in the courts and the courts have been pretty clear: burning a flag is almost always First Amendment protected expression. The key case here is Texas v. Johnson:
We are tempted to say, in fact, that the flag’s deservedly cherished place in our community will be strengthened, not weakened, by our holding today. Our decision is a reaffirmation of the principles of freedom and inclusiveness that the flag best reflects, and of the conviction that our toleration of criticism such as Johnson’s is a sign and source of our strength. Indeed, one of the proudest images of our flag, the one immortalized in our own national anthem, is of the bombardment it survived at Fort McHenry. It is the Nation’s resilience, not its rigidity, that Texas sees reflected in the flag — and it is that resilience that we reassert today.
The way to preserve the flag’s special role is not to punish those who feel differently about these matters. It is to persuade them that they are wrong.
When Trump says this “never passed the courts,” he’s not just wrong—he’s demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of how Supreme Court precedent works. Texas v. Johnson didn’t fail to “pass” the courts; it established that flag burning is constitutionally protected speech.
As for the “one year penalty” that is not in the executive order, nor is it something a President could determine by Executive Order. But no one dares tell the mad king he’s got no idea what he’s talking about.
More telling than Trump’s legal confusion is his claim to possess extensive evidence that doesn’t exist. He insists they have “many, many examples” of flag burning inciting violence that they have “down on tape.” This should be easy to verify—if such tape existed.
If journalists cared about getting this right, they could ask him any number of questions, starting with why he’s ignoring Texas v. Johnson. Or, maybe, since he claimed they have “many, many examples” of flag burning inciting violence, that they have “down on tape,” someone should ask him to provide the tapes. Where is the evidence of this? He says they have so much of it, so surely they can show it?
The Brandenburg standard for incitement requires speech that is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” Flag burning, as symbolic political speech, simply doesn’t meet this test. Not even close. There would need to be specific, directed calls to violence, not mere symbolic expression that some find offensive.
But we all know it’s the usual nonsensical ramblings of an old man who has no idea what’s actually going on, and who is easily fooled by fake things they put on Fox News.
The only honest and accurate thing he said in the whole thing was the line that every Democrat should use in their political ads:
“We took the freedom of speech away.”
Yes, Donald, you sure did. And you continue to do so. Bring this up every day. Make the quote famous. Make sure everyone knows what Donald Trump is admitting.
This admission fits perfectly into Trump’s broader pattern of attacking the First Amendment. From threatening to sue publishers to promising to imprison protestors, this administration has consistently treated free speech as an obstacle to be overcome rather than a principle to be protected.
And everyone who supported him on the false belief that he would “bring free speech back” might want to do some soul searching to understand why you bought an obvious lie from an obvious fabulist.
It seems like years ago, but the Trump administration got itself sued earlier this very year by the state of California for commandeering California’s National Guard to shut down anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles. Trump justified this by declaring the city to be under siege, even though (1) most violence was being committed by law enforcement, (2) most of the protest activity was limited to a few blocks in the downtown LA area, and (3) even Los Angeles law enforcement officials stated no help was needed because whatever imagined problem there was, they already had under control.
The law prevents the Executive Branch from commandeering the National Guard. It’s federalism, which is a concept the Trump administration likes when it’s triggering a bunch of state-level anti-abortion laws following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but doesn’t when it allows states to reject help they never asked for — especially when that “help” looks more like a martial law soft launch.
The law prevents the federal government from doing this for obvious reasons — reasons made much more obvious when Trump insisted on doing it anyway, for exactly the reasons legislators built in a safety valve that should prevent presidents from using the National Guard as a vehicle for revenge.
Well, Trump wants to do the same thing in Portland, Oregon. Given the chain of events, it appears Trump was convinced by Fox News programming (yeah, in the other sense of the word) that Portland — and especially the ICE depot — was under constant, flaming, violent attack by protesters. That’s because the Fox broadcasts decided (deliberately) to include footage of protests and riots in that city in response to a heinous murder committed by Minnesota police officer, Derek Chauvin.
Trump briefly reconsidered this move, suspecting people might be using his obvious stupidity and comprehensive malleability against him to “invade” Portland. This moment of clarity was brief, swiftly replaced by Trump’s overriding desire to inflict pain on any place that’s not loaded up with loyalists.
So, the administration (after Trump and Hegseth stroked each other off by calling military officials “fat” and stating that going to war with their fellow citizens was part of the master plan) said it was going to commandeer Oregon’s National Guard to shut down anti-ICE protests that have mostly been no more violent than the hip-thrusting of an inflatable frog, which somehow managed to force heavily armed federal officers to retreat.
Well, Trump and his DOJ already knew what to expect, given California’s response to the administration’s illegal use of National Guard troops. Oregon sued immediately, raising the same arguments, and raising the specter of an immediate injunction blocking the administration from violating the law yet again.
Things got truly stupid and scary during the government’s arguments in the emergency hearing prior to a federal judge’s second successive temporary restraining order [PDF].
The government wanted two things. First, it wanted no restraining order at all. Second, it wanted the almost-inevitable restraining order stayed while it appealed its case.
While the second thing is relatively normal, the tactics the government used to secure its preferred option would be hilarious if both versions of the Trump administration hadn’t made it clear it exists only to beat this country into submission while steamrolling every check or balance that stands in its way.
Joshua Friedman listened to the emergency hearing. His report — contained in a Bluesky thread you’ll definitely want to read all the way through — shows the government doing the sorts of things you wouldn’t normally expect a democratic republic to do.
HAPPENING NOW: Judge Karin Immergut hears emergency arguments as California and Oregon seek to block President Trump's deployment of federalized California National Guard troops to Portland. 🧵
And by that I mean acting like the worst, most disingenuous commenters in any heated comment thread.
I am not even kidding. Since the government knew it wasn’t allowed to take control of Oregon’s National Guard (something made clear by the restraining order it was hit with the day before), it decided to do this instead:
Judge: How could bringing in [National Guard] from CA not be in direct contravention of [temporary restraining order] I issued yesterday?
DOJ: TRO related only to Oregon NG
Judge: You are an officer of the court. Aren’t defendants clearly circumventing my order?
Yeah, that’s what this administration thinks it can use as an end-around: it’s going to send California National Guard members to Oregon because it believes the court can’t stop it from moving the goalposts. In its clouded mind, a restraining order forbidding the federalization of Oregon National Guard troops can easily be avoided by sending in troops from another state… which will apparently also free it of any restraints currently in place in California.
But that’s not all! Perhaps sensing reshuffling California National Guard troops might be a legal headache, especially while still engaged in a lawsuit filed by the state of California, the Trump administration prepared a back-up plan.
DOJ: If the court enters a second TRO, we move for a stay pending appeal. We respectfully request that the court note this in any order it issues.
Judge: Response, Mr. Kennedy?
Oregon: I want to note new info about impending transfer of [Texas National Guard] members. We received at 6:36 p.m., so apologies.
Pure psychopathy. It’s one thing to be so completely stupid that you think this might work. It’s another thing to represent the federal government and the Trump administration and engage in actions that strongly suggest you think federal court judges are even stupider than you are.
Judge: Based on the conduct of the defendants and now seeing TX National Guard called up, I am going to grant alternative TRO requested. Let me ask plaintiffs—I’d prefer not to modify original TRO, but I am troubled to hear of CA and TX NG being sent to OR, in apparent violation of my order.
[…]
Judge: That’s what I’ll do. Prohibit federalization or deployment of any NG troops into Oregon. For all reasons in prior opinion. Deployment of federalized military is ultra vires and contrary to law, violating Title 10, section 12406. I also find it’s likely that defendants violate 10th Amendment.
The government will have to take its Calvinball elsewhere. Unfortunately, it’s still got home field advantage at the Supreme Court. But this is exactly the sort of dipshit fuckery that defines Trump and his administration. The problem is that doing it often enough occasionally allows it to rack up unearned wins. When the wins stop rolling in, then we’ll see what this administration is willing to do to impose its will on this country. Chances are, it’s going to be a whole lot more of what we’ve seen already, only without the friction we’ve long assumed would be more than enough to prevent this country from sliding downhill into outright authoritarianism.
