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FIRST ON FOX: A conservative watchdog urged a federal appeals court Wednesday to toss Washington, D.C.'s National Guard lawsuit, arguing the city cannot sue itself because it is part of the federal government.
"To start, one cannot sue oneself," Oversight Project lawyers wrote in a brief in the case. "And that is what this case ultimately is—the United States suing itself. Moreover, it is a foundational principle of the law that a municipal corporation cannot sue its sovereign creator."
The appeal sits at the intersection of Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops in Washington last year and D.C.’s long-running fight over self-government. What began as a lawsuit over the president’s deployment of forces into the capital has now evolved into a threshold legal battle over whether the district has the right to challenge that move in federal court at all.
Oversight Project lawyers told Fox News Digital in an interview that if the appellate court judges in Washington were to agree with them, the decision would reach far beyond the National Guard lawsuit, which arose last year when the Trump administration began deploying military forces to blue cities in several jurisdictions to support immigration officials and, in D.C.'s case, to make the city "safe and beautiful."
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"If the judges find our argument valid, it's going to kind of restore the normal system, which is D.C. is entirely subordinate to the federal government and these disputes are resolved politically," Oversight Project lawyer Sam Dewey said.
The proper recourse for D.C. against the federal government on any issue would be for the D.C. Council to turn to the president and Congress, not the courts, Dewey said.
The case stemmed from D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb suing last September, arguing Trump encroached on the city's perceived independence by disregarding "Congress’s decision, half a century ago, to afford the residents of the District ‘the powers of local self-government.’"
A three-judge panel temporarily paused a lower court's injunction against the administration while the appeals court continues to examine the merits of the case. Two of the judges on the panel, both Trump appointees, wrote in a concurring opinion that the pause was necessary because D.C. did not, in fact, have standing to sue, echoing what the Oversight Project detailed in its new amicus brief in the case.
"We have never recognized that the District possesses an independent sovereignty that can give rise to an Article III injury from actions of the federal government," the two Trump-appointed judges wrote.
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President Donald Trump began deploying National Guard forces to cities across the country last year as part of an effort to support immigration authorities, who faced waves of protests and riots over their deportation efforts. The Supreme Court stepped in, however, saying the deployment was likely unlawful under the law Trump invoked. The order applied to cities including Portland, Oregon; and Chicago, but not D.C., because of the district's unique status.
In D.C., Trump extended roughly 2,600 National Guard soldiers' presence through the end of 2026, and the president has signaled he hopes to further extend that timeline, despite continued opposition from D.C.'s Democratic leadership.
"This is actually training. I never want to take them out of D.C. I mean, maybe somebody later on will do it," Trump said in a Cabinet meeting last month.
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Briefing in the lawsuit is set to stretch through May and the appeals court could schedule oral arguments after that before making a decision on the legality of the National Guard's presence and activities.
Fox News Digital reached out to Schwalb's office for comment.
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