16 States to Sue Trump for Invoking Emergency to Get Wall Funding

[Content Note: Nativism.]

NB: Donald Trump's rationalizations for the border wall are all lies. A border wall is as unnecessary as it would be ineffective. There is no emergency at the southern border, or anywhere else in the country, that a wall would solve. Trump is a liar who is stealing money from the military in order to fund the construction of his personal monument to nativist white supremacy.

It's infuriating to me that every article and public conversation about Trump's border wall — and the national emergency he has declared to secure funding for it — does not start out with a similar set of reminders about the profound mendacity and malice underwriting this entire shambolic spectacle. I deeply resent the expectation that any of us participate in this debate, such as it is, as though its central premise isn't undiluted trash.

This isn't even about a wall anymore, and it hasn't been for a long time. This is about Donald Trump's rampaging authoritarianism and whether he will be allowed to continue unfettered his erosion of our democracy.

At the moment, since his party simply refuses to do anything but eagerly abet him and since the Special Counsel's investigation is clearly a sham, the only remedy is the courts. Which we won't have for much longer, as Trump and Pence and Senate Republicans quickly remake the judiciary by stacking the courts with conservative lackeys.

But we've still got some time — and 16 states are making use of it while they can.

Charlie Savage and Robert Pear at the New York Times report:

A coalition of 16 states, including California and New York, on Monday challenged [Donald] Trump in court over his plan to use emergency powers to spend billions of dollars on his border wall.

The lawsuit is part of a constitutional confrontation that Mr. Trump set off on Friday when he declared that he would spend billions of dollars more on border barriers than Congress had granted him. The clash raises questions over congressional control of spending, the scope of emergency powers granted to the president, and how far the courts are willing to go to settle such a dispute.

The suit, filed in Federal District Court in San Francisco, argues that the president does not have the power to divert funds for constructing a wall along the Mexican border because it is Congress that controls spending.

Xavier Becerra, the attorney general of California, said in an interview that the president himself had undercut his argument that there was an emergency on the border.

"Probably the best evidence is the president's own words," he said, referring to Mr. Trump's speech on Feb. 15 announcing his plan: "I didn't need to do this, but I'd rather do it much faster."

The lawsuit, California et al. v. Trump et al., says that the plaintiff states are going to court to protect their residents, natural resources and economic interests. "Contrary to the will of Congress, the president has used the pretext of a manufactured 'crisis' of unlawful immigration to declare a national emergency and redirect federal dollars appropriated for drug interdiction, military construction, and law enforcement initiatives toward building a wall on the United States-Mexico border," the lawsuit says.

This may be only the first of several lawsuits, as House Democrats are contemplating bringing a lawsuit as part of their strategy to stop Trump when they return from recess.

Trump predicted that he would be sued and threatened to take it all the way to the Supreme Court, where he expects that the conservative majority will uphold his right to use the emergency powers to fund the wall, despite the fact that there is observably no emergency to justify invoking said powers.

I'm not sure that Chief Justice Roberts is prepared to go along with that. I guess we're gonna find out.