A President Against the Constitution – Trump Defies Court Ruling and Sends California’s Soldiers to Oregon

What was still seen as a legal turning point yesterday has already become obsolete today. Barely had a federal judge in Oregon prohibited the federalization of that state’s National Guard when Donald Trump reacted with a move that left even seasoned constitutional scholars speechless: the president ordered 300 members of the California National Guard to be transferred to Oregon - without any official announcement, without coordination with the affected states, without the governors’ consent. What looks like a logistical maneuver on paper is in truth a political breach of a dam. For the first time in modern United States history, a president is deploying soldiers from one state specifically to undermine the judicial independence of another. It is the most blatant attack on the federal principle since the crisis years of the civil rights movement - only this time the enemy is not segregation or unrest, but the law itself.

Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, said Sunday evening in Sacramento that he would take the decision back to court. “This is an egregious abuse of power,” he said. “Our citizens, our soldiers, and our Constitution deserve respect - not political arbitrariness.”

Earlier, Oregon’s governor, Tina Kotek, announced that 101 soldiers from California had arrived in her state by military plane on Saturday night - more were on the way. Kotek called it “a clear attempt to circumvent the federal court’s ruling.” Her words were as calm as they were sharp: “There is no insurrection in Portland, no threat to national security. This is our home, not a military target.” The administration in Washington remains silent. The Department of Defense refused to comment, as did the White House press office. It was the same pattern seen the previous day when Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker reported that National Guard units in his state had also been “activated” - without any official order.

This reinforces the impression of a government that now treats the concept of legality as mere scenery. On Saturday, Judge Karin Immergut (U.S. District Court, Oregon) had already ruled that Trump’s “Memorandum of Federalization” violated the principle of state sovereignty. Her judgment was clear: the protests in Portland did not justify military intervention, and the president could not simply assume command of a state’s National Guard.

But instead of respecting the legal process, Trump created facts overnight. The new approach feels like a performance - a political tantrum executed with military means. It is the calculated message of a man who disregards institutional limits to project strength. In Portland, the consequences are already visible. Outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility on South Macadam Avenue, hundreds of people gathered over the weekend. They sang, they held up signs - “This is Oregon, not a war zone.” Tear gas hung over the street. Agents from the Customs and Border Protection agency, heavily armed and in tactical gear, guarded the fence. The images resemble those of earlier years, except this time the cause is not unrest but a legal affront from Washington.

Trump, it seems, wants to turn Portland into an experimental field for a new understanding of power. A president who disregards court rulings, state boundaries, and the lines between civilian authority and the military. And an entourage that assists him in doing so: advisers like Russ Vought openly claim that the president must use his “authority to permanently reshape the bureaucracy” - even during a shutdown. In practice, this means that the separation of powers that has supported the American Republic for nearly 250 years is turning into a façade. A judge may still rule, a governor may still protest - yet Trump’s order moves soldiers across state lines within hours.

Oregon’s governor Kotek said Sunday evening she had no information about the current whereabouts of the California units. “We only know that they came - not why, not under whose command.” It is a sentence that, in its uncertainty, captures the full scope of the crisis. In Washington, constitutional experts now speak of an “unprecedented act of usurpation of power.” Former judge Michael Luttig called it “a stress test for American democracy.” And in California itself, disbelief prevails. Soldiers who are meant to serve in one state are secretly sent to another - not to protect the population, but as a political demonstration.

What Trump is now risking is more than a legal dispute between states. It is the slow destruction of the federal architecture that has so far allowed the United States to endure even in times of crisis. A president who turns his power against the Constitution is testing not only Oregon and California - but the very foundation of the Republic itself. “There is no insurrection,” Governor Kotek had said. Perhaps that is still true. But within the institutions of the United States, something else is already fermenting: the quiet revolt of the law against the arbitrariness of power.