ANDREW NAPOLITANO: The federal government can use federal assets to protect federal property. Stated differently, the Department of Homeland Security can send police into Oregon to protect a federal courthouse in Oregon, use that as an example.

They can't supplement or replace the police. They can't go throughout the streets and say, ‘Hey, you’re committing a crime. We’re going to arrest you.’”

They certainly can't do what they have been doing in Oregon, which is arresting people without a warrant and without probable cause, holding them for a few hours and then letting them go. So they have to be restrained and they have to confine their activity to the federal property.

Their law enforcement duties must absolutely be confined to the protection of federal assets, so says the Constitution, which leaves the general police power in the hands of the cities and states and not the federal government.

And they have to wear uniforms that identify them. They can't wear fatigues with a piece of tape that says ‘police.’ Why not? Because if you have an encounter with one of them, you are entitled to know the name of the human being with whom you are having an encounter.

They can't get in the slippery slope of gradually enforcing local law and gradually replacing police.

I understand the president's motivation and I share some of it. Two of these cities, Seattle and Portland, are a mess, but they have chosen political leaders who want it to be a mess and the way to clean it up is through the political method not through the use of federal force.