,
4 tweets,
1 min read
Read on Twitter
What Trump is proposing is not legal. The relevant statute authorizes construction expenditures “necessary” to “support” a deployment of armed forces “required” by a declared national emergency—here the wall is itself the rationale for deployment. justsecurity.org/62149/trumps-p…
Even on a standard of maximum deference to the executive on whether the use of the armed forces is “required” and whether a particular construction project is “necessary” to “support” it, you can’t render the limitation meaningless by permitting it to be circularly satisfied.
If you construe the statute to permit construction expenditures “supporting” a deployment whose only purpose IS the construction, then functionally it’s just an open ended authority to allocate funds to any construction project related to the purported emergency.
That’s obviously a much broader authority than Congress established here—it turns all the limiting language into surplussage. If Congress wanted to authorize use of the military & its budget for any construction related to a declared emergency, they would’ve done that.
