What if, Kavanaugh hypothesized, an angry crowd gathered outside a federal court house threatening to storm the building. The officials said at that time that only about 300 National Guard units from Illinois would remain ready to deploy. Trump is using the National Guard in Washington under a different federal law that was not at issue before the Supreme Court. The Department of Justice countered that reading would be counterintuitive since the standing military is generally barred from executing federal law. To make its case for the deployments, the Justice Department has relied heavily on a Supreme Court decision from 1827 — Martin v. Mott.

Source: CNN December 24, 2025 00:45 UTC