How a Foreign Intelligence Officer Might Report About the Situation in Los Angeles

A Thought Exercise Seeks a Balanced Perspective in a Harrowing Moment

To our Community: Recent days here in California have been deeply disturbing, and so to try and make a dispassionate assessment is difficult. To do so, I imagine I’m an intelligence officer from some other country, reporting back not from the standpoint of an outraged American, but rather as a third party observer just trying to help my home government understand the implications of what is happening, and what might happen next. In my CIA years, I played precisely that role as an American intelligence officer abroad during periods of instability in third world countries. So it does feel familiar to take that approach. I don’t know how satisfying it will be to many readers — but if you’re in “How worried should I be?” mode, then maybe this attempt to place it in perspective will be helpful. Michael

Feels Like Martial Law, But Isn’t — Yet

In Los Angeles, the appearance of martial law is a reality in the small section of this very large city where the protests are happening. There are soldiers on sidewalks, a curfew, federal force deployed without local consent, civil protests recast as rebellion. But significantly, there has been no proclamation, no formal emergency powers, no legal trigger pulled, and civilian authority still theoretically in control. Martial drift might be a better way to understand it. Many of the trappings of martial law are present, but not the teeth of it—there is no suspension of civilian rule, no military tribunals, no curfews imposed by military command, no formal transfer of legal authority from courts to commanders. The uniforms are present, but the constitutional framework hasn’t yet been dismantled. Comment: In many respects, it seems that the American people are being conditioned to accept martial posture without martial law — a unique set of circustances.

Understanding the Modus Operendi and Context

President Trump’s decision to federalize the California National Guard in response to unrest in Los Angeles didn’t happen in a vacuum. It fits a broader and increasingly recognizable governing pattern that has characterized his second administration: a) declare an emergency, b) expand executive authority, and then c) operate in a legal gray zone that forces others—Congress, the courts, or states—to push back after the fact.

US legal scholars have noted this pattern. Ilya Somin, a libertarian law professor not known for exteme statements, put it bluntly: “He is declaring utterly bogus emergencies for the sake of trying to expand his power, undermine the Constitution and destroy civil liberties.”

This is not a tactic unique to Los Angeles—it’s the latest chapter in a method Trump has used repeatedly since returning to office. In each case, he begins with a problem that is real but contained, reframes it as an existential emergency, and then uses that narrative to justify extraordinary measures.

• In March, he invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to justify the mass deportation of Venezuelan migrants, claiming that the gang Tren de Aragua represented an “invasion.” Federal judges rejected the logic. “TdA may well be engaged in narcotics trafficking,” wrote one, “but that is a criminal matter, not an invasion or predatory incursion.”

• In April, he imposed sweeping tariffs on foreign steel and electronics, citing an “economic emergency” tied to national security. Courts have largely rejected this claim, noting that no credible threat assessment supported the action.

• And now, in June, he has taken the first preemptive federal control of a state’s National Guard in modern memory—before local authorities had lost control, and without a request or legal threshold being met. The memo authorizing the move did not even mention Los Angeles. As California officials later noted in their legal challenge, the situation in LA did not meet the criteria for federalization, which under federal law includes invasion, rebellion, or the inability of the state to enforce federal law.

What binds these actions together is not a consistent policy objective, but a consistent political logic: assert sweeping powers first, then frame any opposition as either partisan sabotage or proof of systemic failure.

As Professor Frank Bowman put it, “Declaring everything an emergency begins to move us in the direction of allowing the use of government force and violence against people you don’t like.”

There’s an older, more foundational warning that applies here as well. In his famous concurrence in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952), Justice Robert Jackson warned of the constitutional danger posed by emergency powers:

“They knew what emergencies were, knew the pressures they engender for authoritative action, knew, too, how they afford a ready pretext for usurpation… Emergency powers tend to kindle emergencies.”

That line may describe the Los Angeles episode better than any other.

There was tension, yes. Some protest. But the scope and scale of it was nothing in comparison to, for example, the chaos that engulfed almost all parts of sprawling Los Angeles in 1992 when the Rodney King verdict acquitted white police officers of a brutal beating a black citizen. Here, in 2025, there just few flashpoints of violence and the system was still working. Local law enforcement, which is robust and well equipped, was responding. Civil authority had in no way broken down. It was only after Trump’s federalization order—only after the National Guard was removed from the governor’s control—that things began to truly escalate. What had been a contained episode became a nationalized flashpoint. Yet even then — the scale of the protests was never particularly large by the standards of this massive, sprawling city/state.

Magnifying and Weaponizing Unrest

The worry is not just that Trump took extraordinary action in this situation. It’s the quickness with which he moved; the lack of even a pretense of coordination with local authorities, and finally it’s that he appears to be using unrest not as something to be managed, but as something to be magnified and instrumentalized. Don’t put out the fire; pour gasoline on it in order to gain politically from it.

In this framework, unrest is not the problem. Unrest, rather, appears to be the pretext by which the American President is creating a visual and legal environment in which greater executive control seems not only acceptable, but necessary. And once that narrative hardens, it becomes easier to reuse.

Johnson’s Guard vs. Trump’s Guard: A Tale of Two Responses

Observers point to 1965 as the last time a US President took such actions against the will of a state governor and his administration. But that is flawed precedent for a variety of reasons. When President Lyndon B. Johnson federalized the Alabama National Guard in March 1965, the situation in Selma had reached a profound and deadly turning point. Two weeks earlier, on “Bloody Sunday,” March 7, state police violently attacked peaceful marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, leaving many injured. This was not spontaneous unrest—it was the culmination of two months of mounting tension, including the murder of Black protester Jimmie Lee Jackson by an Alabama state trooper on February 18.

Governor George Wallace's response was outright defiance—refusing to call out the Guard to protect civil rights marchers and instead insisting the state could handle it when it was transparently apparent the state could not, and would not, handle it. Even after meeting with Johnson on March 13, Wallace resisted using the national guard. By March 17, Johnson concluded the state would not act, and on March 20, he federalized the Guard under the Insurrection Act, explicitly to protect protesters—then approximately 8,000 strong—on their walk from Selma to Montgomery. The move restored order, enabled the marchers to complete their journey on March 25, and paved the way for the Voting Rights Act by August.

Now let’s compare that to Trump.

⚖️ Midnight Trump vs. Structured Johnson

The most obvious point comes first - Johnson federalized troops to protect the rights of protestors, and Trump is using them to suppress protests.

• Timeline: Johnson waited two weeks after a violent escalation, built around a legally recognized, rights-based movement. Trump acted immediately—within 48 hours of minor ICE raids and limited street protests.

• Governor Defiance: In 1965, Wallace actively refused to protect demonstrators. In 2025, Newsom was never asked before the federal memo, and was shut out entirely.

• Legal Foundations: Johnson invoked the Insurrection Act, with a formal order following a governor’s refusal and a federal court injunction supporting the march. Trump used Title 10, with no Insurrection Act, no court order, and no legal justification tied to actual unrest.

• Scale of Threat: Selma’s unrest had resulted in state-sanctioned violence and a serious threat to fundamental rights. Los Angeles protests, by contrast, were limited and largely managed locally—until federalization occurred.

Bottom line - no comparison.

The comparison isn’t just historical—it’s instructive:

• Johnson’s intervention was responsive, rights-driven, legally grounded, and aimed at protecting citizens from state violence.

• Trump’s action was proactive, politically calculated, legally murky, and assertive before any significant threathad actually materialized.

In sum, what the American President did in 1965 in Selma was a last resort to uphold constitutional rights and protect the rights of protesters. What Trump did in LA was a first strike demonstrating federal power before local authority had been given a reasonable chance to act.

Was Trump’s Saturday Memo A Template?

On Saturday evening, President Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum that authorized the federalization of 2,000 members of the California National Guard. The memo, though relatively brief, is striking for both what it includes and what it omits. Most notably, it does not mention Los Angeles at all, despite the fact that the federalization order has been widely interpreted as a response to the protests there. Instead, it refers broadly to “areas where protests are occurring or are likely to occur,” granting sweeping discretion to the Secretary of Defense to deploy those troops anywhere in California—or beyond—where federal personnel or property might be affected.

The legal basis cited is 10 U.S.C. § 12406, a provision that allows the president to call National Guard troops into federal service in limited situations, typically when states are “unable” to enforce the laws of the United States or to protect federal operations. But the statute has rarely been used in this way, and traditionally, it has been employed in concert with state governments—not over their objections. By invoking §12406 without any consultation with California’s leadership—and absent any clear or immediate breakdown of public order—Trump bypassed both the legal and political norms that have long governed how military forces are deployed domestically.

What makes the memo even more significant is that it doesn’t stop with the National Guard. It also authorizes the Secretary of Defense to deploy active-duty military personnel if necessary—and indeed, in the days since, active duty Marines have been deployed. That’s a far more serious step. While federalized Guard troops are subject to the Posse Comitatus Act (which prohibits them from acting as domestic law enforcement without further legal authority), active-duty military involvement escalates the sense of crisis—and raises constitutional concerns about the militarization of domestic affairs.

Critics immediately noted the lack of proportionality. At the time the memo was signed, unrest in Los Angeles—while real—was limited in scale, largely localized, and had not overwhelmed the city’s or state’s ability to manage it. California had not requested assistance. In fact, Governor Gavin Newsom explicitly opposed the federal move, stating that the situation did not warrant federalization and that Trump’s action stripped the state of control over its own forces before any coordinated response could be mounted.

The structure and language of the memo reveal a broader strategy—one that legal scholars say has come to define Trump’s approach to executive authority. Rather than respond to emergencies, he defines them. By declaring a situation to be a crisis before one actually exists, he creates the legal and political justification to assume powers that would otherwise be out of reach. As Frank Bowman, a law professor at the University of Missouri, put it recently, “Declaring everything an emergency begins to move us in the direction of allowing the use of government force and violence against people you don’t like.”

In that sense, the memo is not just a military deployment order—it’s part of a well-established pattern. Trump has used similar legal sleights of hand to justify deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, tariffs under emergency trade powers, and now, a domestic security action under a rarely invoked Guard statute. The throughline is the same: the manufacturing of crisis to justify the expansion of power.

Seen in that light, the memo’s vagueness is not a flaw—it’s a feature. By avoiding specific reference to Los Angeles or any defined incident, the order becomes a template, not a one-off. And it leaves open the possibility that future deployments could occur elsewhere—Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia—under the same logic, and without meaningful oversight.

Dramatic Pushback from California’s Governor

On Tuesday evening, California Governor Gavin Newsom offered a speech that was carried nationally on news networks and social media. Newsom bluntly stated what many observers hostile to President Trump have been writing:
Trump and his loyalists, they thrive on division because it allows them to take more power and exert even more control.

And by the way, Trump, he’s not opposed to lawlessness and violence as long as it serves him. What more evidence do we need than January 6th.

I ask everyone: Take time, reflect on this perilous moment. A president who wants to be bound by no law or constitution, perpetuating a unified assault on American traditions.

This is a president who, in just over 140 days, has fired government watchdogs that could hold him accountable, accountable for corruption and fraud. He’s declared a war, a war on culture, on history, on science, on knowledge itself. Databases quite literally are vanishing.

He’s delegitimizing news organizations and he’s assaulting the First Amendment. And the threat of defunding them. At threat, he’s dictating what universities themselves can teach. He’s targeting law firms and the judicial branch that are the foundations of an orderly and civil society. He’s calling for a sitting governor to be arrested for no other reason than to, in his own words, “for getting elected.”

Comment

As this report is about to be published, protests in other cities have begun and it is unclear when or if Trump will repeat the federalization process he has undertaken in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles city officials (not military leaders) declared an overnight curfew in the relatiely small central area that is affected by the protests, and numerous arrests were made by local law enforcement. The situation remains tense but the vast majority of Los Angeles is unaffected and life and business continues as normal. Schools and businesses are open; tourists are filling the streets of Hollywood and the various attractions that bring them here. The map below shows the curfew area (red circle) in context.