LogFAQs > #961309619

Jakyl25 posted...

Did Trump ever successfully do that with the Border Wall funding? I know he floated the idea.

Yeah.

So one of the under-the-radar blatantly unconstitutional actions here was Trump usurping Congress's power of the purse.

When Congress refused to appropriate money to the wall, Trump declared a National Emergency and claimed that authorized him to divert military and other DoD funds that Congress had appropriated elsewhere to be used for the wall instead. Obviously lawsuits were filed immediately and while lower and circuit courts all were like "dawg this is so obviously unconstitutional you can't do that shit" SCOTUS went 5-4 "but is it?" and let the administration spend the money while proceedings continued (the lower courts had issued an injunction to prevent the spending pending the results of the case and that's what SCOTUS overturned)

So the cases proceeded and the lower courts found that obviously this was unconstitutional af. Congress is granted the power of the purse and the Executive branch can't just ignore them when they don't get what they want. Trump appealed to SCOTUS who agreed to hear it but Biden took office before it was argued and killing the emergency order was one of his many Day 1 actions so the case became moot and was dismissed. But much of that money was spent and not recoverable, AFAIK.