,
11 tweets,
5 min read
Read on Twitter
This (from Sen. Lee's comms guy) is a very important thread -- although Trump's presser focused on the emergency declaration, he invoked two other statutes today that would give him an additional $3.1B in wall $$ and would be used before the emergency money. 1/
Key text from WH fact sheet: 2/ whitehouse.gov/briefings-stat… 
As @conncarroll notes, the WH says they'll use this $$ sequentially, which means they won't reach the emergency money until they've spent approx $4.5 billion of the other funds. This could have implications for the pace of lawsuits involving the emergency declaration. 3/
As @bradheath notes, it's not at all clear why the WH thinks they can tap the Treasury forefeiture fund for the wall. 4/
At first glance, 10 U.S.C. 284(b)(7) is a more likely contender, but it's limited to "construction of . . . fences . . . to block drug smuggling corridors." It remains to be seen the extent to which this is a limitation. 5/
Here's an interesting deep dive on section 284 by @JoshMBlackman. 6/
Bottom line -- we need more reporting and deeper legal analysis on the aspects of Trump's executive actions today that don't involve the emergency declaration. 7/end
Re-opening the thread to add new stuff as I notice it — good piece by @MargLTaylor and @S_R_Anders with insights on the Treasury forfeiture fund and 10 USC 284. 8/lawfareblog.com/what-authoriti…
They may have found the reason why WH thinks they can tap the Treasury forefeiture fund. 9/
But they note that most of the purported $2.5 billion available under 10 USC 284 has yet to materialize. 10/
This @charlie_savage piece has great info and analysis regarding the issues discussed in this thread, including the $2.5 billion that the administration claims it can access via 10 USC 284 before tapping funds unlocked by the emergency declaration. 11/ nytimes.com/2019/02/19/us/…
