WATCH: The National Guard is not Trump’s ‘private army,’ California AG Bonta says after federal hearing

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge on Friday strongly questioned the Trump administration’s authority and its need to maintain command of California National Guard troops it first deployed to Los Angeles in June after violent protests.

Watch California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s remarks in the video player above.

At a hearing in San Francisco, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer noted that conditions in Los Angeles had changed since the initial deployment, and questioned whether the administration could control State Guard forces “in perpetuity” under its interpretation of federal law.

He watches: Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to US cities is receiving renewed scrutiny

“No crisis lasts forever,” he added. “I think experience teaches us that crises come and crises go. That’s just the way it goes.”

He pressed government lawyers for any evidence that state authorities were either unable or unwilling to help keep federal employees and property safe in the area, and noted that President Donald Trump had access to tens of thousands of troops serving in California.

California officials asked Breyer to issue a preliminary injunction returning control of the remaining California National Guard troops in Los Angeles to the state. Breyer did not rule immediately. He previously found that the administration’s deployment of the California National Guard was unlawful.

“The National Guard is not a mobile private army for the president to deploy where he wants, when he wants, for as long as he wants, for whatever reason he wants, or for no reason at all,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said after the hearing.

Trump initially called up more than 4,000 California National Guard troops in response to protests over his tightening of immigration laws, but that number dropped to several hundred by late October, with only 100 or so troops remaining in the Los Angeles area.

However, the Republican president has also tried to use members of the California Guard in Portland, Oregon, and Chicago, as part of his efforts to send the military into Democratic-run cities despite fierce resistance from mayors and state governors.

Justice Department Attorney General Eric Hamilton said federal law gives the president the authority to expand control over State Guard forces for as long as he deems necessary.

He added that the remaining forces in Los Angeles allow immigration agents to continue their mission and protect federal property, noting that someone threw two incendiary devices at a federal building on Monday.

Hamilton said the court does not have the authority to review how the president has managed the ongoing Revolutionary Guard mission, but even if it could, it would have to consider this summer’s violence.

“We cannot turn a blind eye to what happened in Los Angeles in June of this year,” he said.

Trump’s summoning of the California National Guard was the first time in decades that a state’s National Guard was activated without a request from its governor and represented a major escalation in the administration’s efforts to implement the mass deportation policy. They were stationed outside a downtown federal detention center where protesters gathered, and were later sent into the streets to protect immigration officers as they made arrests.

California sued, and Breyer issued a temporary restraining order requiring the administration to return control of the Guard to California. But the Court of Appeal committee suspended this decision. Breyer was nominated to the bench by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat.

California argued that the president was using Revolutionary Guard members in violation of a law limiting the use of the military in internal affairs.

The administration said the courts could not question the president’s determination that the violence during the protests made it impossible for him to enforce U.S. laws with regular forces and reflected insurrection or the risk of insurrection.

In September, Breyer ruled after a trial that the deployment violated the law. Other judges have blocked the administration from deploying National Guard troops in Portland, Oregon, and Chicago.

Thanwala reported from Atlanta.