The Democrats have tried many different lawsuits to stop President Trump from executing his immigration agenda. But their latest attempt has hit a roadblock, a Trump appointed judge who is skeptical of their tactics.
According to Bloomberg:
A U.S. House of Representatives attempt to block President Donald Trump from spending about $6.1 billion on a southern border wall ran into what could be a major obstacle of its own Thursday — a skeptical federal judge.
The Democrat-led chamber asked U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden in Washington to bar the administration from reallocating the money from other Defense Department projects in the wake of Congress’s outright refusal to give the president all the funding he sought for the project.
But the judge — a 2017 Trump nominee — had reservations, opining at the outset about an apparent lack of legal precedent and whether courts are the right forum for resolving disputes between the executive and legislative branches. The so-called legal standing question “strikes me as a significant issue in this case,” McFadden said.
McFadden asked House lawyer Douglas Letter whether his clients had exhausted all other avenues for resolving its dispute with the Trump administration. It had, the House attorney responded, it said no to the president.
House Dems are arguing that the president does not have the power to appropriate money while the executive branch is arguing that the president is simply re-allocating money which has already been appropriated. It looks like the Trump admin’s argument may have a chance in this case.