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Trump Broke Law by Using Military Funding for Border Wall, Ninth Circuit Rules

Elliot Setzer
Friday, June 26, 2020, 4:29 PM

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Friday, June 26 ruled that the Trump administration’s use of Pentagon funds to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border is illegal. In a 2-1 decision, the Ninth Circuit ruled for the States of California and New Mexico, finding that Section 8005 of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2019 did not authorize the transfers of funds. The Ninth Circuit held the diversion of funding violated the Appropriations Clause of the U.S. Constitution and was therefore unlawful. In Sierra Club v. Trump, a companion appeal also handed down today, the panel reaffirmed this holding.

You can read the decisions in California v. Trump and Sierra Club v. Trump below:


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Elliot Setzer is a Knight-Hennessy Scholar at Stanford Law School and a Ph.D student at Yale University. He previously worked at Lawfare and the Brookings Institution.

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