Forget Pelosi's and Schumer's Sabre-rattling and Fear-mongering, President Trump's National Emergency Case for Securing the Southern Border Is Very Strong

PRESIDENT TRUMP DECLARES NATIONAL EMERGENCY TO SECURE BORDER, WHILE McCABE REVEALS EXTENT OF DEEP STATE PLOT TO OUST TRUMP. President Trump was in great form on Friday morning when he appeared in the White Rose Garden to tell America and the media that he will indeed sign the budget bill, take th $1.34 offered in it, and then use his national emergency powers to fund the rest of the wall. • • • PRESIDENT TRUMP SEEKS $8 BILLION TO COMPLETE BORDER WALL. Fox News journalists Brooke Singman and John Roberts reported right after the Rose Garden announcement and press questions that : "President Trump said Friday he is declaring a national emergency on the southern border, tapping into executive powers in a bid to divert billions toward construction of a wall even as he plans to sign a funding package that includes just $1.4 billion for border security. 'We’re going to confront the national security crisis on our southern border...one way or the other, we have to do it,' Trump said in the Rose Garden. The move is expected to face a swift and forceful legal challenge that could stall the attempt in the courts for the near future. But the declaration and other money-moving plans allow Trump to continue to fight for border wall construction while also averting another partial government shutdown -- which would have been triggered at midnight absent the new funding package. Trump, in the Rose Garden, declared once again that 'walls work' as he confirmed he'll sign the emergency declaration. 'We’re talking about an invasion of our country,' Trump said. And in an almost-casual tone, the President predicted a legal fight that will wind up before the Supreme Court. 'We will have a national emergency, and we will then be sued,' Trump said, adding that the federal appeals courts could well rule against his administration. 'Then we’ll end up in the Supreme Court, and hopefully we’ll get a fair shake, and we’ll win at the Supreme Court -- just like the [travel] ban.' " • A senior administration official told Fox News that the White House plans to next "move $8 billion in currently appropriated or available funds toward construction of the wall. Of that, $3 billion could be diverted with help from the emergency declaration. That money includes about $600 million from the Treasury Department’s forfeiture fund." That money has been described as “easy money” that the White House can use however it wants. The White House is also expected to use drug interdiction money from the Department of Defense. But, says Fox News : "By declaring an emergency, Trump would also seek to unlock money from the Defense Department’s military construction budget as well, to the tune of $3.5 billion. Diverting Pentagon funding, however, is expected to set off a legal battle and has already prompted fierce opposition from Democrats in Congress. 'This is plainly a power grab by a disappointed President, who has gone outside the bounds of the law to try to get what he failed to achieve in the constitutional legislative process,' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement. 'The President's actions clearly violate the Congress’s exclusive power of the purse, which our Founders enshrined in the Constitution.' They vowed Congress would 'defend our constitutional authorities in the Congress, in the Courts, and in the public, using every remedy available.' 'The President’s declaration of a national emergency would be an abuse of his constitutional oath and an affront to the separation of powers. Congress has the exclusive power of the purse, and the Constitution specifically prohibits the President from spending money that has not been appropriated....This is a gross abuse of power that cannot be tolerated,' House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said in a statement. " • Despite the huffing and puffing from Pelosi and Schumer, this is far from the only declared national emergency. According to the Congressional Research Service, there are at least 30 "national emergencies" in effect NOW, including those concerning blocking Iranian government property, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and other terror-related acts. But, according to Fox News : "None of the emergencies have involved the President of the United States spending money that had not been specifically appropriated by Congress. The President’s decision to declare a national emergency comes after a review of the spending package. The compromise package, which was negotiated for weeks in a bipartisan conference committee, passed both the House and the Senate on Thursday. But the deal would provide only a fraction of Trump’s originally proposed figure of $5.7 billion for border security and construction of a wall or physical barrier along the southern border. The bill also imposed a number of restrictions on the White House, with legislative language preventing the administration from moving funding around to get a barrier or a wall -- a factor that may have contributed to the emergency declaration decision." • • • THE PELOSI GAMBIT. The budget bill will allow sufficient funds to build just 55 miles of barrier. And notably, the word "wall" does not appear once in the 1,768 pages of legislation and explanatory materials. Fox News' reporter Greg Re says : "The agreement provides almost $1.4 billion for new barriers along the boundary. That's less than the $1.6 billion for border security in a bipartisan Senate bill that Trump spurned months ago, and far short of the $5.7 billion Trump has long requested. It's enough for building just 55 miles of barricades, not the 200-plus miles he'd sought. Notably, the word 'wall,' the heart of many a chant at Trump campaign events and his rallies as President, is absent from the compromise's 1,768-page legislative and descriptive language. 'Barriers' and 'fencing' are the nouns of choice." • The agreement, which took three weeks to agree on, provides additional funding for 5,000 more beds that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can use to house illegal immigrants. But in an attempt to pressure the agency to detain fewer illegal immigrants, Democrats ensured that the compromise bill did not include funding for the 2,000 additional ICE agents requested by the Trump administration, or the 750 Border Patrol agents that were also sought. Provisions providing even some support for ICE prompted some of the most liberal Democrats to vote "no." Four progressive freshmen, including Democrat Representatives Alexandria Octavio-Cortez, said they were opposing the agreement. AND, Texas Republican Representative Chip Roy, who succeeded retired longtime GOP Representative Lamar Smith this year, called the legislation ineffective and wasteful : "I will be voting NO on this disastrous 1169 page bill. It increases spending, fails to secure the border, empowers cartels to traffick children to 'sponsors' in the US receiving amnesty, punts congressional duty to the Presidency, & may well undermine any emergency declaration." • Speaker Pelosi, determined to prevent President trump form building any more border barriers -- whether because she really opposed them or because she intends to use the lack of more barriers as a 2020 campaign tool for the eventual Democrat nominee -- has never mentioned the 30 national emergency declarations in effect as of February 1, 2019, according to a tabulation prepared by the Congressional Research Service, predominately concerning sanctions related to Iran, Zimbabwe, Sudan, and Yemen. One of the emergency declarations currently in effect, entitled "Blocking Iranian Government Property," dates back to the administration of President Jimmy Carter. • But, this did not stop Pelosi and Schumer from saying : “Declaring a national emergency would be a lawless act, a gross abuse of the power of the presidency and a desperate attempt to distract from the fact that President Trump broke his core promise to have Mexico pay for his wall," Pelosi and Schumer said, adding that "Congress will defend our constitutional authorities.” • Pelosi has the ability to pass legislation to overturn any emergency declaration by Trump, and that measure might pass the GOP-held Senate as well, although President Trump would certainly veto it. At that point, two-thirds of both the House and Senate would be needed to terminate Trump's emergency declaration. • The President was correct in saying on Friday that his move almost certainly would face a court challenge as well, although Pelosi stopped short of vowing that congressional Democrats would file a lawsuit. Courts generally have been reluctant to weigh in on legal disputes between Congress and the White House under the political question doctrine. • 2020 Democratic presidential contenders and prospective candidates were split on the funding compromise reached by the House and Senate. Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar and Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who is expected to join the Democrat primary soon, backed the bill. Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, another Democrat considering a presidential run, also voted in favor. • White House hopefuls who opposed the legislation, meanwhile, included Senators Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, and Kirsten Gillibrand. • Pelosi & Gang are fighting an uphill battle. Fox News states : "The National Emergencies Act grants the President broad authority to declare emergencies, and several federal laws could then clear a path for the White House to move ahead with building a wall. One statute, 33 U.S. Code § 2293 - 'Reprogramming during national emergencies,' permits the President to 'apply the resources of the Department of the Army’s civil works program, including funds, personnel, and equipment, to construct or assist in the construction, operation, maintenance, and repair of authorized civil works, military construction, and civil defense projects that are essential to the national defense.' Another law, 10 U.S. Code § 2808 - 'Construction authority in the event of a declaration of war or national emergency,' permits the secretary of defense, in a presidentially declared emergency, to use 'funds that have been appropriated for military construction' for the purpose of undertaking 'military construction projects.' " • President Trump clearly spelled out the broad outline of his argument on declaring the national emergency and defending it in court -- he referred time after time to the deadly drugs coming across the southern border, and to the cartels and criminals who enter the US illegally and then traffick women or murder Americans. Fox News reminds us that : "Central Americans are increasingly entering the United States illegally in groups of at least 100 people in rugged, remote stretches of the Mexican border, officials said last week upon releasing January figures that showed total arrests falling for a second straight month -- arrests typically fall in December and January. A group of 325 Central American migrants surrendered to agents Thursday near Lukeville, Arizona, according to Customs and Border Protection. Migrants told authorities that buses and trucks dropped them off throughout the night on a nearby Mexican highway running parallel to the border and they entered the US together to wait for agents to find them. There were nearly 150 children, including 32 who were traveling alone. The Border Patrol has encountered groups of at least 100 people 60 times since October 1, compared to 13 during the entire 2018 fiscal year and two in the 2017 fiscal year, officials said. Many are in the desolate New Mexico Bootheel and Arizona deserts. It is unclear what's driving the sudden uptick of large groups in remote areas, but families, many of them Central American asylum seekers, make up a large and growing percentage of arrests across the border. US authorities arrested or stopped people for immigration violations 58,207 times in January, down 4% from 60,779 in December BUT up 62% from 35,905 in January 2018....Families and children traveling alone accounted for 33,861 of those encounters, or nearly 6 of every 10 stopped at official crossings or arrested for entering the country illegally between crossings, mostly from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. That's a dramatic change from several years ago, when most people who crossed illegally were single Mexican adults." • • • DEAR READERS, as for Speaker Pelosi, she is up to her usual exaggerated accusations and threats about the President declaring a national emergency. It has been widely reported that Pelosi noted that if the GOP backs the President on an emergency declaration, a future Democratic president could declare an emergency on gun violence. POOR Pelosi. She seems to have forgotten that there is a Second Amendment. IF any President tried to use a national emergency declaration to confiscate or outlaw guns, the Supreme Court would move quickly to stop such a declaration as being unconstitutional. This is a fear tactic being used cynically by Pelosi to try to persuade Americans that President Trump's declaration of a national emergency to secure the southern border will somehow result in gun confiscation. RUBBISH. PURE RUBBISH. And, Nancy Pelosi knows it. • Build the wall, Mr. President.