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1/ The essential problem with the widespread notion that Trump is declaring an emergency when there is no emergency is this:
2/Emergency isnt typically defined in relevant law, presidents've always had discretion to decide if there’s an emergency, & they’ve often declared emergencies under circumstances short of necessity, to address a real problem but not an emergency as understood in common parlance.
3/ As Koh and Yoo put it (and this has not changed in the three decades since they wrote): “Presidents “have declared national emergencies with little regard to whether a real emergency has actually existed.” scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewconten…
4/ So as we have seen many times in the last two years, Trump is building on very broad congressional delegations and past presidential practices.
5/ But Trump makes what he is doing seem, and in reality be, much worse because he suggests openly that there is no real emergency (“I didn’t need to do this”), instead of (as past presidents did) hiding the ball or using more effective rhetoric in a less divisive context.
6/ Here as elsewhere, Trump hurts himself – legally if not otherwise – by his lack of hypocrisy. theatlantic.com/magazine/archi… 
7/ As in many contexts, Trump by his willingness to push the envelope, combined with his shamelessness and lack of hypocrisy, shines the brightest of lights on how much power Congress has given away, and how much extraordinary power presidents have amassed.
