Appeals court presses DOJ on D.C. National Guard mission

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit pressed a Justice Department lawyer on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026, over President Donald Trump’s National Guard deployment in Washington, in a challenge brought by the District of Columbia’s attorney general.

About 2,900 Guard members were still in the capital the week before the hearing, down from a peak of about 5,000 over the summer, The Associated Press reported. The Defense Department has extended the mission until January 2029, the AP said.

The hearing lasted 90 minutes before Judges Cornelia Pillard, Judith Rogers and Bradley Garcia, the AP reported. The three were nominated by Democratic presidents: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden, in that order. No ruling was issued, and the court gave no timeline.

Pillard asked how the government’s position was not federalization of the Guard, and therefore in conflict with the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law that bars the use of the military for domestic law enforcement unless the Constitution or Congress allows it, the AP reported.

Eric McArthur, the government’s lawyer, said the limit on the president’s power is that he must call out the Guard “in aid of the civil authorities.” He also said the district “hasn’t established any irreparable harm from these deployments,” according to Law&Crime’s account of the argument. Law&Crime also reported that McArthur likened the president’s role to that of a state governor and described the district as a federal enclave.

Rogers pressed for a limiting principle, Law&Crime reported. “It’s not sort of, well, the president says crime is out of control,” she said, according to that account. She also asked why security funds appropriated by Congress for the district were withheld.

Mitchell Reich, arguing for the district, said no provision of the D.C. code gives the president power to deploy the Guard “in any circumstance the president wishes,” and said no riot or similar disturbance was under way, according to Law&Crime. The AP reported that Reich acknowledged the president can deploy the Guard to suppress organized violence in the district.

Law&Crime said the three judges kept returning to one question: who is in charge of the district, Congress or the president.

Trump sent the Guard into Washington in August 2025 as a crime-fighting mission, the AP reported. The administration says the deployment has helped reduce crime. Critics call it a waste of taxpayer money and a normalization of militarization, the AP said. Law&Crime put the cost at an estimated $3 million a day, and the AP reported a $292-million federal contract for apartments for members of the task force.

U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb ruled in November 2025 that the takeover illegally intrudes on local control of policing in the district. In December 2025 a different three-judge appeals panel, with two Trump appointees, paused her ruling in a unanimous decision, so the troops have stayed while the case continues, the AP reported. That panel said Trump might prevail on his claim that the president “possesses a unique power” to mobilize the Guard in the district.

Law&Crime reported that the district’s council criticized an Oct. 9 social media image showing Guard troops in front of a ballot drop box. The joint task force responded that its members “are directed not to monitor or secure polling locations,” Law&Crime said.

William Banks, a Syracuse University law professor, told the AP the district may have a slim argument under the Home Rule Act of 1973 but that the president has wide discretion as commander in chief. The AP noted that the administration would likely take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court whatever the appeals court decides.

A ruling from the panel is pending. The two reports do not mention any Canadian connection to the case.

Via The Associated Press and Law&Crime.

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