Pelosi Vows to Use 'Every Remedy Available' to Block Trump Declaring Emergency
Democrats call on Republican lawmakers to help stop the President
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. have ramped up attacks on President Donald Trump following his national emergency declaration to fulfill his promise of building the southern border wall.
The President is allocating $8 billion from multiple federal agencies to fund the US Southern Border wall.
But Pelosi and Schumer both promised to use adopt "every remedy available" through the courts or Congress, to stop Trump using his emergency declaration to bypass Congress.
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[RELATED] Pelosi Warns Democrats Could Declare Emergency to Seize Americans’ Guns
The pair, who have stonewalled Trump at every move within wall negotiations, called on Republican lawmakers to help stop him.
“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," the top congressional Democrats wrote in a statement.
"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 is not above the law. Congress cannot let the President shred the Constitution," they added.
“This issue transcends partisan politics and goes to the core of the Founders’ conception for America, which commands Congress to limit an overreaching executive," they said.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2019
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"The President’s emergency declaration, if unchecked, would fundamentally alter the balance of powers, inconsistent with our Founders’ vision."
The President highlighted violence and crime behind declaring the emergency, which will allow funds to be redirected from the Department of Defense toward impediments along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump wasn't unaware of a coming legal fight though, according to a report from CNBC the President anticipated his national emergency declaration would be rejected by multiple federal courts but ultimately upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In blunt remarks, delivered in the White House Rose Garden, Trump outlined a legal strategy based on the playbook his administration used to defend its travel ban successfully.
"I'll sign the final papers as soon as I get into the Oval Office. We will have a national emergency."
We will then be sued, and they will sue us in the 9th Circuit, even though it shouldn't be there.
"We will possibly get a bad ruling, we'll get another bad ruling, and we'll end up in the Supreme Court, and hopefully we'll get a fair shake, and we'll win in the Supreme Court," the president said.
Trump issued the emergency declaration after Congress passed a spending package that only provided $1.375 billion for 55 miles of physical border barriers.
That will fall short of Trump's $5.7 billion demand for the wall.
