Trump’s emergency declaration faces fights in the courts

WASHINGTON: Let the lawsuits begin. US President Donald Trump declared a national emergency along the southern border and predicted his administration would end up defending it all the way to the Supreme Court.

That might have been the only thing Trump said on Friday that produced near-universal agreement.

The American Civil Liberties Union announced its intention to sue less than an hour after the White House released the text of Trump’s declaration that the “current situation at the southern border presents a border security and humanitarian crisis that threatens core national security interests and constitutes a national emergency”.

Non-profit watchdog group Public Citizen filed a suit later, urging the US district court for DC to “bar Trump and the US defence department from using the declaration and funds appropriated for other purposes to build a border wall”.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and several Democratic state attorneys general already have said they might go to court.

The coming legal fight seems likely to hinge on two main issues: Can the US president declare a national emergency to build a border wall in the face of Congress’ refusal to give him all the money he wanted and, under the federal law Trump invoked in his declaration, can the defence department take money from some congressionally approved military construction projects to pay for wall construction?

The Pentagon has so far not said which projects might be affected.

NO RESPONSE FROM JAPAN ON NOBEL CLAIM

Trump claimed on Friday that Japan’s prime minister had nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize for opening a dialogue with North Korea.

Trump also complained about former US president Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize and doubted he would be similarly honoured.

PM Shinzo Abe “gave me the most beautiful copy of a letter that he sent to the people who give out a thing called the Nobel Prize”, Trump said at a White House news conference. “He said, ‘I have nominated you, respectfully, on behalf of Japan. I am asking them to give you the Nobel Peace Prize.’”

AP could not immediately confirm Trump’s claim.

Japan’s foreign ministry said on Saturday that it was aware of Trump’s remark but it cannot comment on details of t he exchanges between Trump and Abe.