President Donald Trump’s emergency declaration for border security has no factual basis behind it, say 58 former senior national security officers.
“Under no plausible assessment of the evidence is there a national emergency today that entitles the president to tap into funds appropriated for other purposes to build a wall at the southern border,” the group said in a joint statement it will issue Monday, according to The Washington Post.
Trump last week declared an emergency to obtain wall funding beyond the $1.4 billion Congress approved for border security.
The move, which allows the president to bypass Congress to use money from the Pentagon and other budgets, prompted a multistate lawsuit filed last Monday.
The 16 states, including California, New York and Colorado, alleges Trump's declaration is unconstitutional.
The 11-page statement, signed by former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, former President Barack Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice, Obama’s CIA director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and many others, will be published a day before a House vote to block the declaration.