Nancy Pelosi, sick of losing to Trump on the political battlefield, is moving her spurious attacks to the federal court system.
The move was inevitable and will be followed by many court actions meant not to stop Trump, but to harass him and his administration.
There will be lawsuits over Trump’s taxes, his communication in the White House, over security clearances and just about everything Trump has done.
Trump’s team will have to spend an inordinate time in court fighting this nonsense, but some fights, like the border wall, are worth it and Trump will not back down.
From Politico: The House sued members of President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday over his emergency declaration to force funding for a border wall.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., asserts Trump’s emergency acts in direct disregard of Congress’ will and disputes the president’s ability to access certain funds for the wall simply by declaring an emergency.
It names Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and the departments they oversee. It does not name Trump as a defendant.
“The House has been injured, and will continue to be injured, by defendants’ unconstitutional actions, which usurp the House’s appropriations authority and mean that the relevant funds are no longer available to be spent on the purposes for which they were appropriated,” the complaint says.
The complaint follows legislative attempts to block Trump from diverting billions of dollars toward one of his keystone campaign promises, which reached a near breaking point when the government entered its longest shutdown in history straddling New Year. Trump ultimately used a national emergency in an attempt to secure funding for the wall in a move that was fiercely criticized on both sides of the aisle for interfering with Congress’ constitutional power of the purse.
“The President’s action clearly violates the Appropriations Clause by stealing from appropriated funds, an action that was not authorized by constitutional or statutory authority,” Pelosi wrote in a statement.
