Short thread on following the money:
1) President Trump has tried to shift several billion dollars in funds appropriated for other purposes to build a border wall -- a move that has been temporarily blocked in federal court because 1/x
1) President Trump has tried to shift several billion dollars in funds appropriated for other purposes to build a border wall -- a move that has been temporarily blocked in federal court because 1/x
2) President Trump unilaterally suspended $391 million in funds appropriated by Congress to aid Ukraine in its fight against Russia. He has been impeached by the House of Representatives for using that money as leverage to force the announcement of political investigations 2/x
3) In both cases, the president relied on top budget aides, including Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, to come up with extraordinary maneuvers to execute and justify his actions. 3/x
4) The main power that Congress has to limit the authority of the president is its power of the purse. That is exhibited both in the amounts of money appropriated for particular purposes and the policy language attached to spending bills 4/x
5) Courts have held in the past that appropriations are a determinative indication of the will of Congress. 5/x
6) When a president re-interprets appropriations laws, he is altering the expressed will of the branch of government empowered to make spending decisions for the country. That is, he is substituting his judgment and asserting his power over the purse for those of Congress. 6/x
7) Given that the Congress' main power to limit the authority of the president is found in its power of the purse, its power to follow through on a declared war or prohibit the execution of an undeclared war is also derived from that control of the flow of money. 7/x
8) The president has vast power, through the War Powers Act and the existing 2001 and 2002 AUMFs, to conduct undeclared wars across the globe. He can only be held back in one of two ways. ... 8/x
it can agree to a resolution calling on him to end an undeclared war or it can choke off the funding. 9/x
9) The War Powers Act has never been used to end a war, and it's not clear whether it would survive a court challenge by a president determined to continue fighting a war -- or that such a court challenge would be resolved while the war was ongoing. 10/x
10) That leaves cutting off funding for a war. The most straightforward way to do that would be legislative language banning the use of funds for the war. But even that requires a president to follow the law and the norms surrounding the law. 11/x
11) Trump has shown that he is very determined to find ways to get around at least the norms surrounding budget and appropriations laws in the cases of the wall and Ukraine aid. 12/x
12) Oh, and I should point out that in order to pass a ban on spending for a war, the president would have to sign it or Congress would have to override a veto -- meaning two-thirds of each chamber would have to defy the president. 13/x
13) Does all of that mean Trump would launch a war and then ignore Congress if it voted to stop the war? No. 14/x
14) But it helps explain why some lawmakers in both parties are deeply concerned that Congress has ceded too much of its war-making power to the presidency and others, in addition to that, are particularly eager to set limits on Trump as quickly and clearly as possible. 15/15
