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Tanuki

(14,918 posts) Wed Apr 24, 2019, 07:19 PM Apr 2019

House asks judge to block Trump DoD border wall funding.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/23/trump-border-wall-funding-1288799?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=0000014e-f0fe-dd93-ad7f-f8ff7e290000&nlid=630318

"The House of Representatives has asked a federal judge to block President Donald Trump’s plan to build a border wall using Defense Department funds.

On Tuesday, House lawyers requested that U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden issue a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration’s plan to spend about $6 billion from military construction and counter-drug accounts to build additional barriers along the U.S-Mexico border.
"
Defendants are moving quickly to construct the border wall, and they have awarded contracts against funds that Congress did not appropriate for that purpose. And more contracts are coming soon,” House General Counsel Doug Letter and other lawyers wrote. “Once made, these unconstitutional expenditures cannot be undone, and the grave institutional injury inflicted on the House cannot be remedied.”

The House’s 56-page motion accuses Trump of trying to make an end-run around the Constitution by ignoring Congress’s power of the purse. House lawyers also seek to use Trump’s own words against him, mentioning six times that on the day he announced the emergency, Trump also said, “I didn’t need to do this.” They also cite his campaign vow that Mexico would pay for the wall.

More than half of the money the House is seeking to block is linked to an emergency declaration Trump issued in February, after he agreed to sign a budget bill following a 35-day government shutdown over wall funding. The bill contained only $1.375 billion for border fencing, far less than Trump sought.".....(more)