Police order protesters to leave downtown Los Angeles as Trump says ‘bring in the troops’

How was Trump able to mobilise the National Guard?published at 04:4504:45

Another mechanism also exists: the Insurrection Act of 1807.

The president did not use the Insurrection Act to call in National Guard troops to LA – but it can be invoked by presidents to activate the military to respond to domestic unrest.

The 19th century law means that a president can use active-duty military personnel to perform law-enforcement duties in the US.

It has been used a handful of times: once by Abraham Lincoln during the US Civil War, again by Ulysses S Grant against a wave of racist violence carried out by the Ku Klux Klan, and by Dwight Eisenhower to protect black students trying to attend school in Arkansas during the civil rights movement.

It was most recently invoked in 1992 during the LA riots, which followed the the acquittal of four white police officers in the beating of Rodney King, a black man.About 2,000 National Guard troops have been deployed in Los Angeles by the federal government, against the wishes of California Governor Gavin Newsom. US President Donald Trump has also suggested that he could deploy the Marine Corps to respond to the protests.

Trump used a law that says National Guard deployment can be federalised if the US “is invaded or is in danger of invasion by a foreign nation”; “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion” against the government; or “the president is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States”.

Trump has said that the protests constitute a rebellion against the federal government.