Judge Blocks Some Border Wall Construction

Authoritarian demagogue Donald "Rump" Trump has lost another case in Federal court. Yesterday, U.S. District Court Judge Haywood Gilliam, Jr. issued a preliminary injunction blocking Trump from using funds he diverted from military pay and pension funds and other needs after Congress declined to fund his vanity border wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for. The injunction blocks wall construction using those funds while the Judge considers the merits of the suits.

In his ruling, Judge Gilliam noted Trump's diversion of the funds didn't match the law they cited as a justification. Specifically, the law governing emergency transfer of the funds requires an "unforeseen" event, and Gilliam observed that Trump had been talking about the wall (that Mexico, etc.) for years, going back to his campaign. In fact, when Trump spoke about the "emergency" on February 15, he ignorantly undercut his own argument by saying “I could do the wall over a longer period of time. I didn’t need to do this, but I’d rather do it much faster.”