A federal judge has ruled that the deployment of National Guard troops and Marines in Los Angeles in June constituted an illegal use of the military for domestic law enforcement purposes.

In a widely expected decision, US District Judge Charles Breyer issued a ruling Tuesday morning that finds the Trump administration's deployment of the National Guard and Marines to quell protests in Los Angeles was a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. The ruling largely echoes a more brief decision issued by this same judge as part of an emergency injunction in June.

As the Associated Press reports, Breyer's ruling finds that administration officials "willfully" violated the law, refusing to "meaningfully coordinate with state and local officials," and that they instructed troops to perform functions that were specifically barred in their own training materials.

"These actions demonstrate that Defendants knew that they were ordering troops to execute domestic law beyond their usual authority," Breyer writes. "The evidence at trial established that Defendants systematically used armed soldiers (whose identity was often obscured by protective armor) and military vehicles to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engage in crowd control, and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles."

The three-day hearing in the case was held last month, and Judge Breyer heard from multiple witnesses, including Major General Scott Sherman, a 33-year Army vet who served as the commanding officer for the troop deployment in LA. One particularly telling bit of testimony came from General Sherman regarding the highly theatrical July 7 parade of federal personnel, some on horseback, through MacArthur Park, in a largely Latino part of the city.

Sherman had pushed back on this operation, even having it rescheduled after the administration initially wanted it to happen on Father's Day — judging that it could be crowded and create a tense standoff with civilians, and that it would be a low-value operation with high risk.

He testified that many National Guard troops drove to the area but, when the operation occurred in a largely empty park — with just some scared schoolchildren at a day camp there — most of them remained in their vehicles.

Sherman testified that when he expressed concerns about the risks and logistics of this operation, Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino openly questioned his loyalty to the administration.

The administration's lawyers have tried to argue that the Posse Comitatus Act does not apply when troops are guarding federal buildings or personnel. But Judge Breyer found sufficient evidence that troops overstepped that function.

Breyer allowed for a ten-day delay for his ruling to take effect, and it will no doubt be appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit — as his earlier injunction was. He noted in the ruling that Trump has threatened to deploy troops to other US cities for more obvious domestic law enforcement purposes.

As the New York Times notes from the ruling, Breyer "repeatedly" asked "Where are the limits?" when it comes to a president's power to define wherever and whenever he thinks there is an emergency that rises to the level of requiring a military presence.

"Does that make it a rebellion because the president said so?" Breyer said, regarding the protests in LA that sparked the first troop deployment.

Legal experts have broadly questioned whether Trump would be able to establish any legal footing from which to deploy more troops outside of Washington DC, where he has technically declared "home rule" for 30 days — and where there is no state government to push back on the decision.

Governor Gavin Newsom, who has taken to mocking and imitating Trump using his own random capitalization of words on social media, tweeted Tuesday morning, "DONALD TRUMP LOSES AGAIN. The courts agree -- his militarization of our streets and use of the military against US citizens is ILLEGAL."

Previously: Federal Court Hearing Concludes Regarding Trump's Deployment of National Guard Troops in LA

Photo by Getty Images