House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks to reporters with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Sen. Dick Durnin (D-IL) following a border security briefing with U.S. President Donald Trump and congressional leadership at the White House in Washington, U.S., January 2, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer released a joint statement Friday morning blasting President Trump for declaring a national emergency, threatening to seek every remedy in the Courts to defend their constitutional authorities.
“The President’s unlawful declaration over a crisis that does not exist does great violence to our Constitution and makes America less safe, stealing from urgently needed defense funds for the security of our military and our nation. 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.
“The President’s actions clearly violate the Congress’s exclusive power of the purse, which our Founders enshrined in the Constitution. The Congress will defend our constitutional authorities in the Congress, in the Courts, and in the public, using every remedy available.
“This issue transcends partisan politics and goes to the core of the Founders’ conception for America, which commands Congress to limit an overreaching executive. The President’s emergency declaration, if unchecked, would fundamentally alter the balance of powers, inconsistent with our Founders’ vision.
“We call upon our Republican colleagues to join us to defend the Constitution. Just as both parties honored our oath to protect the American people by passing the conference committee bill, the Congress on a bipartisan basis must honor the Constitution by defending our system of checks and balances.
“The President is not above the law. The Congress cannot let the President shred the Constitution.”
Basically, legal scholars agree that what Trump is doing is not only unconstitutional, but unprecedented and his fake national emergency should fail.
Even Ann Coulter knows it’s nothing but a desperate political ploy.
But this all hinges on Republicans having an ounce of integrity, and/or being concerned about being held accountable for enabling this power grab by voters – in other words, their own political careers.
Should Trump somehow manage this, it would do incredible damage to our system of government. So perhaps that is a win for him, and his real goal, but I have trouble seeing him as a witting actor in that ploy. He seems so uninformed about government, and an easy mark for Putin due to his greed and ignorance and ego. Either way, though, Trump is doing damage to our country and to our democracy.
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