The U.S. Court of Appeals on Thursday said National Guard troops can remain in D.C. as they weigh the legality of an order requiring President Donald Trump to end the troops’ presence, three U.S. Court of Appeals judges said in a Friday order.
D.C. District Court judge Jia M. Cobb found the troops’ presence unlawful on Nov. 20 after D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued to end the deployment in September, but she delayed the effects of her order until Dec. 11 to allow the federal government to appeal the ruling. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a ruling Friday it paused Cobb’s order temporarily to grant the judges time to hear additional arguments.
“The purpose of this administrative stay is to give the court sufficient opportunity to consider the motion for stay pending appeal and should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion,” the panel wrote.
The ruling means the guard troops can remain beyond the district court order’s Dec. 11 deadline.
The ruling comes eight days after a shooting near Farragut West Metro station left one West Virginia guard member dead and another gravely injured. The Justice Department Tuesday charged 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan National and resident of Washington state, with killing Sarah Beckstrom and critically injuring Andrew Wolfe.
The shooting prompted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to deploy 500 additional National Guard troops to the district, who arrived in the days following. There are now about 2,700 troops in the city.
Both U.S. Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate and Schwalb argued the shooting strengthened their respective positions on the deployment’s lawfulness in appeals court filings Tuesday and Wednesday. Schwalb said the incident illustrates the risk the deployment poses to both guard members and the public.
He said the deployment has “forced” the District to pair Metropolitan Police Department officers with guard members on patrols due to safety concerns following the shooting, which diverts scarce police resources.
“The deployment impinges on the District’s home rule, requires the diversion of scarce police resources, and exposes both the public and Guard members to substantial public safety risks, as Defendants themselves acknowledged at the outset of the deployment, and as the horrific attack on two National Guard members last week tragically underscored,” Schwalb wrote in a Tuesday filing arguing against staying the lower court’s order to remove the troops.
Shumate said the shooting doesn’t prove the guard presents a danger to public safety and criticized Schwalb’s argument that the shooting justified an injunction barring the guard’s presence.
“As to Plaintiff’s discussion of last week’s shooting, an assassin’s veto is a wholly inappropriate basis to enjoin the President’s lawful acts,” Shumate wrote in a Wednesday filing. “And that despicable act of violence does not undermine the public-safety benefits the Guard’s presence has brought.”
The White House and Schwalb did not immediately return requests for comment.
