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Sam Berger @SamBerger_DC
, 5 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
When news broke about the Cohen payments, legal experts said it was a crime. The Trump team argued it wasn't. The experts were right and the Trump team was wrong.

Those same experts say that the June 9th Trump Tower meeting was also a crime: they're right about that too. /1
In early 2018, campaign legal experts at @CommonCause filed a complaint with DOJ regarding Cohen's payments. And they weren't the only ones to say the Cohen payments looked illegal. Experts like @LarryNoble_DC agreed. /2
commoncause.org/wp-content/upl…
But Guiliani dismissed these claims, saying "there was no campaign finance violation." /3
washingtonpost.com/politics/giuli…
As yesterday made clear, the experts were right and Rudy was wrong. /4
cnn.com/2018/08/21/pol…
Those same experts who were right about Cohen's crimes also argue that the Trump campaign's meeting with the Russians violated the law. Maybe it's time to stop listening to the Trump team and start listening to the people who keep being right. /End
commoncause.org/media/doj-fec-…
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I think this aspect of Trump's proposal to order DoD to illegally build a wall has not gotten enough attention: it would require the military to *seize a massive amount of property* from states, tribes, and private citizens.
Trump is proposing to use emergency authority to make DoD build a wall. This raises a whole host of legal issues b/c it's not, in fact, legal. One of them is that the military can only build things on property "under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of a military department."
So if the military is going to build over 1,000 miles of border wall, then it needs to have "jurisdiction" over that land. And that's where Trump's "military version of eminent domain" comes in. It's the sort of thing you expect to hear in a dictatorship, not America.
Read 3 tweets
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Great scoop from @KFaulders, @Santucci, and @Elizabeth_McLau. As a lawyer at OMB, I worked on appropriations issues all the time. What the Trump administration is discussing here is illegal, plain and simple.
Thread 👇
Under the Anti-Deficiency Act, it's a crime for federal agencies to spend $ on something Congress hasn't authorized - it's the statutory means for enforcing Congress' constitutional power of the purse. The Trump team is trying to sidestep the law by using emergency powers. /2
How? 10 USC 2808 says that w/ "a declaration of war or...a natl emergency...that requires use of the armed forces, SecDef...may undertake military construction projects...not otherwise authorized by law that are necessary to support such use of the armed forces." /3
Read 10 tweets
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I helped manage the 2013 shutdown at OMB, so believe me when I say that they get exponentially harder to manage as time goes on. Agencies run out of carryover $, grant recipients able to cover a short time w/o federal funds can't any more, and unexpected issues crop up.
This type of management challenge is hard enough when you have a competent, committed group of people doing their best. But when you're relying on the most incompetent administration in modern American history...that's a recipe for disaster.
Great ex. from @meghanncuniff, John Waters, and @JoelAchenbach: to limit political blowback, Trump is keeping parks open w/o enough personnel. It exposes parks to damage and visitors to danger. But WH put politics over safety and our national treasures.
washingtonpost.com/national/in-sh…
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