CHICAGO >> Donald Trump’s threat to invoke a federal anti-insurrection law to expand his deployment of military personnel to U.S. cities has intensified his legal battle with Democratic-led cities over presidential authority, as hundreds of National Guard troops from Texas today prepared to patrol the streets of Chicago.

The president told reporters on Monday he would consider utilizing the Insurrection Act, a law enacted more than two centuries ago, to sidestep any court rulings restricting his orders to send Guard troops into cities over the objections of local and state officials.

“We have an Insurrection Act for a reason,” Trump said. “If people were being killed and courts were holding us up, or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure, I’d do that.” The law, which gives the pre

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