Without approval from local leaders, President Donald Trump has a narrow constitutional path to justify sending federal officers into U.S. cities, legal expert Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax TV.
"He certainly within his rights to send agents in to protect federal courthouses, federal postal outlets, and federal officials – there's a statute that gives them that authority and the Constitution gives him the authority to make sure that the law is enforced," Dershowitz told "Saturday Report."
"What is much more questionable is whether he has the authority to send in troops just generally to cities that are not in areas where there are federal buildings or federal interests to become a federal police force. The Constitution doesn't seem to permit that without the request of the governor or the state legislature – which hasn't happened in the Portland and other cases."
Trump has announced the expansion of "Operation Legend," where federal agencies are being authorized by the Trump administration and Justice Department to send money, resources, and personnel into American cities with high crime rates, including Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico.
"You have to rely on that one statute that does permit federal government to protect the federal buildings," Dershowitz told host Grant Stinchfield, who asked if violent anti-police and anti-government rioting can be considered an "insurrection" as was bandied about with regard to illegal aliens crossing the U.S. border in the 2018 midterm elections.
"It's hard to call this an insurrection – and certainly not an invasion," Dershowitz noted. "The law is not particularly clear. The Constitution isn't crystal clear on this.
"That statute is clear on this, and that statute has been held constitutional."
Ultimately the debate of executive authority is going to be a battle waged in the courts, he added.
"These are hard questions that nobody anticipated would arise," Dershowitz concluded.
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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