- Joining us for more onthe President's declaration

is John Malcolm, seniorlegal fellow at the

Heritage Foundation, John,thanks for being with us.

So Democrat's are callingthe move unconstitutional.

Is that true?

- No I don't think so.

So Congress has actuallydelegated to the President

rather broad authority underthe National Emergencies Act.

So today he's invoked that authority.

So what the President nowhas to do is to send to

Congress the declaration andto say what other statutes

that he is relying uponto take these funds to do

what it is that he wants to do.

He decided three differentlaws, one of them

has to do with theTreasury Departments asset

for richer fund.

Another has to do withthe statutes that deals

with military construction projects.

And another has to do withthe Department of Defense

fund for drug interdiction efforts.

So those statutory authority exists,

I believe he's on fairly solid ground.

- John, what do you think the next move

from the Democrats is gonna be?

- Well they're gonna needto introduce a resolution

to try to get this national declaration,

national emergency declaration nullified.

I think they're going to fail at that.

The votes just aren't there.

And then somebody isgoing to file a lawsuit

challenging this, it could bethe House of Representatives,

it could be a privateproperty owner who's property

is going to be seizedunder imminent domain

along the border to build this wall.

They'll file a lawsuit inthe federal district court,

probably in California, because California

is within the ninth circuit,Texas is within the more

conservative fifth circuit.

And they'll try to get ajudge to issue a nation

wide injunction toprohibit the President from

doing what he wants to do.

- Is there a downside to declaring this as

a national emergency?

- Well I think its regrettablethe Congress didn't

work with the Presidentto try to accomplish this.

A number of Democrat'swere on record in 2006 when

they passed the statefences act saying that there

was a need for a wallalong the southern border

or some kind of barrier.

The situation hasn't gottenany better along the southern

border over that time,but because this President

is the one doing the asking,they approve it to be

rather in transit.

So there's a certainamount of uncertainty as to

whether or not he's going to ulitimately

be able to do this.

But as I said I thinkat the end of the day,

he'll be successful.

Every invocation ofauthority by a President

sets some kind of a precedence.

Some people are afraid aboutwhat a future President

might do by declaringa national emergency.

But of course, there are statutes in place

that to some degree limita Presidents ability

to declare a nationalemergency against a climate

warming or fire arm possessionor something like that.

- That was actually MissPelosi's point yesterday

right before the announcementtoday that if there

was another President ofanother party he could

invoke the same powers be it on the issue

of gun violence or climate change right?

- Well, but again thenational emergencies act,

all that does is provide avehicle for the President

to do this.

He has to rely on otherlaws in order to take

these appropriated funds and divert them

for the purposes of building a wall.

And the President hascited now these three

other laws that allow him to do this.

I'm aware of no otherfederal law that would

allow a President to divertfunds for say military

purposes in order tocombat climate change.

- Okay, terrific John, thank you so much

for your insights, pleasecome back here again

on the CBN News Channel.

- Good to be with you.