Presidents have declared dozens of emergencies, but none like Trump’s

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump last week pointed to nearly five dozen previous instances in which presidents of both parties have declared emergencies as justification for his invocation of extraordinary powers to build his border wall. But there is no precedent for what he did Friday.

None of the times emergency powers have been invoked since 1976, the year Congress enacted the National Emergencies Act, involved a president making an end run around lawmakers to spend money on a project they had decided against funding. Trump, by contrast, is challenging the bedrock principle that the legislative branch controls the government’s purse.

“On the surface, this ‘Oh, other pres-