Connecticut Attorney General William Tong (D) asserted Tuesday that President Trump broke the law by declaring a national emergency over the border late last week.
“The president is breaking the law, and he’s shredding the Constitution,” Tong said on CNN’s “New Day.” “He’s declared a national emergency where there is none.”
Connecticut is among a group of 16 states that filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking to block the emergency declaration and declare it unlawful.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, seeks to block the Trump administration from building a border wall without funding allotted by Congress.
{mosads}Trump declared a national emergency at the border on Friday after signing a spending bill in which Congress allocated about $1.4 billion for border security, a fraction of the $5.7 billion Trump originally demanded.
Tong pointed to Trump’s comments at a Friday press conference on the declaration as evidence that the president is improperly using his emergency declaration powers to fulfill a campaign promise to build a barrier at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“It’s pretty clear that he’s perverting the National Emergencies Act to do something that Congress explicitly forbid him from doing, which is building a wall,” Tong said.
Trump said last week that he did not “need” to declare the emergency, but did so in order to build the wall “much faster.” The White House later sought to clarify his remarks.
The declaration is also facing legal challenges from three environmental and animal advocacy groups, among other organizations.