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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCourt Blocks Chunk of Border Wall Funds, Citing Trump's Remarks as a Reason
President Donald Trumps attempts to fund his much-touted border wall were thwarted, at least partially, by a Friday evening ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Haywood Gilliam in Sierra Club v. Trump, Politico reported.
The Sierra Club took Trump to court after he declared a national emergency and tried to reallocate $8.1 billion in defense funding to pay for the wall. But, the judge said, the presidents emergency powers only allow that kind of transfer of funds for unforeseen military requirements and blocked a $1 billion transfer of funds from the Pentagons counterdrug efforts.
The judge dedicated pages of his ruling to quoting Trump talking about the need for a wall along the border long before Trump tried to shift the funds, which undermines Trumps legal justification that hinges on the need for this funding being unforeseen. So, it was Trumps constant drumbeat of yelling about the need for a wall during his campaign and the first two years of his administration rendered the transfer unconstitutional.
Defendants argument that the need for the requested border barrier construction funding was unforeseen cannot logically be squared with the Administrations multiple requests for funding for exactly that purpose dating back to at least early 2018, Gilliam wrote.
Trumps legal team also argued that the president can move funds without Congress when the legislative branch doesnt give him as much as he requested, but Gilliam also shot that argument down.
The position that when Congress declines the Executives request to appropriate funds, the Executive nonetheless may simply find a way to spend those funds without Congress does not square with fundamental separation of powers principles dating back to the earliest days of our Republic, the judge wrote.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/court-blocks-border-funding-840295/
keithbvadu2
(36,906 posts)Cha
(297,655 posts)Volaris
(10,274 posts)Pfffft...this is the stupidest fuckin legal argument I've ever heard in my life get the fuck out of my courtroom with this bullshit and don't come back...and go ahead and tell the president I said his lawyers are Fuckin Idiots for good measure.
Reads like he was pissed he even had to waste his time throwing this out lol.