Taxpayers will cover the $120 million bill for President Donald Trump's illegal move to federalize the National Guard and put the U.S. Marines on the streets of Los Angeles, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday.
With 300 National Guard members still deployed to Los Angeles under what Newsom calls "the guise of protecting federal facilities," the receipt on what it cost taxpayers adds up to nearly $120 million, according to the governor.
The deployment of more than 4,200 National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines cost $71 million for food and other basic necessities, $37 million in payroll, more than $4 million in logistics supplies, $3.5 million in travel and $1.5 million in demobilization costs, which adds up to an estimated $118 million, according to the governor's office.
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"Let us not forget what this political theater is costing us all -- millions of taxpayer dollars down the drain, an atrophy to the readiness of guardsmembers across the nation and unnecessary hardships to the families supporting those troops," Newsom said in a statement. "Talk about waste, fraud and abuse. We ask other states to do the math themselves."
The deployment was ruled illegal by a federal judge Tuesday following a lawsuit brought by Newsom and a resulting three-day trial in San Francisco federal court.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer determined that the June deployment was in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, which bars most uses of U.S. troops on U.S. soil. The Trump administration filed a notice of appeal Wednesday with the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals.
Breyer's ruling was based on an 1878 law that prevents federal troops from being used for regular law enforcement activities. The Trump administration has argued that the troops were there to protect federal officers and property and they were not performing local policing duties.
"The ruling makes clear: Trump is breaking the law by trying to create a national police force with himself as its chief," according to the governor.
Last month, Newsom's office filed a federal Freedom of Information Act requesting all documents and records to identify the total expenses incurred to activate the Marines and federalize the National Guard since June 7. While the federal government has not responded to the request, Newsom said, the California National Guard developed the calculations at the request of the governor.
The governor contends that the entire deployment process was rushed, soldiers early on were forced to sleep on the floors and in the open air, use facilities with no functioning plumbing and were often fighting boredom and low morale.
To come to Los Angeles, guardsmembers were pulled off of specialized assignments -- including firefighting teams and drug interdiction efforts at ports of entry along the border, Newsom said.
Trump has said he wants to keep guardsmembers in Los Angeles through November. On Tuesday, California filed a request for a preliminary injunction to block the administration's order to extend the National Guard's deployment through Election Day.
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