Democrats hit a roadblock this week in their efforts to use the courts to go after President Trump. On the heels of several initial wins…
Democrats hit a roadblock this week in their efforts to use the courts to go after President Trump.
On the heels of several initial wins in lawsuits targeting Trump and his personal finances, Democratic lawmakers were dealt a blow Monday when a federal judge ruled that they don’t have the authority to sue the president over his diversion of military funds to build a border wall.
Judge Trevor McFadden — a Trump appointee — wrote that the “lawsuit is not a last resort for the House,” pointing to “several political arrows in its quiver to counter perceived threats to its sphere of power.”
House Democrats have increasingly turned to the courts to further their investigations into Trump and his administration. But Monday’s ruling is a reminder that not all of those lawsuits are guaranteed to succeed.
The ruling also underscores the judiciary’s wariness of entangling itself in political fights between the executive and legislative branches, with judges preferring that the two bodies resolve the fights among themselves — a near impossibility in this political climate.
McFadden noted in his ruling that the House has successfully sued presidential administrations before, like when Republicans won their lawsuit against the Obama administration for moving federal funds to support the Affordable Care Act.
However, that ruling was not enough to show Democrats can sue the administration in this case, McFadden wrote, because they did not exhaust every political option before going to court.
McFadden’s ruling related only to Democrats’ request that he issue a preliminary injunction to temporarily stop Trump from accessing military funds for constructing a wall along the U. S.-Mexico border. The rest of the case is pending, though Monday’s ruling does not bode well for Democrats, who are weighing whether to appeal McFadden’s order.
Democrats had argued in court that Trump’s national emergency order violated the Constitution’s Appropriations Clause, which grants Congress authority over the allocation of federal funds.
