February, 14 2019, 11:00pm EDT
Trump's Abuse of Emergency Powers is Another Ground for Impeachment
Immediately following President Trump's announced declaration of a national emergency in order to build a wall across the southern border of the United States without congressional authorization, Free Speech For People issued a st
WASHINGTON
Immediately following President Trump's announced declaration of a national emergency in order to build a wall across the southern border of the United States without congressional authorization, Free Speech For People issued a statement identifying this as a new ground for impeachment: abusing emergency powers to fund and build a border wall that Congress has explicitly refused to fund.
"The American People and their representatives in Congress have made clear they will not fund Trump's racist wall," says Ben Clements, a former federal prosecutor and Board Chair of Free Speech For People. "In a breathtaking and unconstitutional manifestation of his belief that he is above the law, Trump is attempting to circumvent Congressional authority by manufacturing and declaring a phony emergency to raid taxpayer funds. This is the direct result of two years of Congressional failure to hold Trump accountable for his reckless, corrupt, and unconstitutional conduct. It's past time to begin impeachment hearings."
"President Trump's illegal declaration of a national emergency to build a wall on the southern border of the United States that Congress has not authorized is a clear abuse of power," says John Bonifaz, the Co-Founder and President of Free Speech For People. "It is time - long past time - for Members of the US House of Representatives to carry out their constitutional responsibilities and to start impeachment proceedings now against this president. We cannot continue to have a lawless president in the White House."
"Trump's bogus emergency declaration is a naked abuse of power for the sole purpose of seizing money that Congress wouldn't give to him," says Ron Fein, Legal Director for Free Speech For People. "By declaring a fake emergency as an end-run to build a wall that Congress has refused to fund, Trump has not only misused his office in this case, but also shown the danger of allowing him to remain in office with the weighty emergency authorities of the presidency. His ongoing threat to constitutional democracy requires immediate impeachment hearings."
Read the detailed case outlining President Trump's abuse of emergency powers as a new ground for impeachment.
Free Speech For People is a national non-partisan non-profit organization founded on the day of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC that works to defend our democracy and our Constitution.
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"While the attention of the world is focused on Gaza, abuses in the West Bank, fueled by decades of impunity and complacency among Israel's allies, are soaring."
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Israeli soldiers have either passively watched or participated in the uprooting of at least seven communities in the West Bank since October of last year, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday in a new report documenting surging settler violence in the occupied Palestinian territory.
The rights group interviewed dozens of eyewitnesses and examined video footage showing harassment and other abuse of Palestinians in the West Bank "by men in Israeli military uniforms carrying M16 assault rifles."
Following the Hamas-led October 7 attack on southern Israel, the Israeli military drafted more than 5,000 settlers into "regional defense" units in the West Bank, Haaretzreported earlier this year. The Israeli newspaper noted that "alongside this large-scale mobilization, the [Israel Defense Forces] has distributed some 7,000 weapons to the battalions as well as to settlers who were not recruited into the army but received them as civilians whom the army considers eligible to carry military arms."
HRW's investigation found that "armed settlers, with the active participation of army units, repeatedly cut off road access and raided Palestinian communities, detained, assaulted, and tortured residents, chased them out of their homes and off their lands at gunpoint or coerced them to leave with death threats, and blocked them from taking their belongings."
"Israeli settlers and soldiers are literally wiping Palestinian communities off the map," said Omar Shakir, HRW's Israel and Palestine director.
"While the attention of the world is focused on Gaza, abuses in the West Bank, fueled by decades of impunity and complacency among Israel’s allies, are soaring."
The new report comes days after Israeli settlers—escorted by IDF soldiers—went on their latest destructive and deadly rampage in the West Bank, killing at least two Palestinians, injuring dozens, and setting homes and vehicles ablaze. At least 20 households were displaced after Israeli settlers burned down their homes.
The wave of settler violence came after a missing 14-year-old Israeli boy was found dead in the area around the West Bank city of Ramallah. The Israeli military said the boy was killed in a "terrorist attack."
Since October 7, according to the United Nations, Israeli settlers have launched more than 720 attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, displacing at least 206 households comprised of 1,244 people—including 603 children. Israeli soldiers in uniform have been present at many of the attacks.
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HRW's new report examines five West Bank communities that have come under attack by Israeli settlers, including one in which uniformed Israeli men armed with assault rifles entered tents and destroyed or stole people's belongings, abused residents, and threatened to kill them if they didn't leave the area.
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None of the families forcibly evicted from the five communities examined in the HRW report have been allowed to return home.
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Following the latest wave of settler violence in the West Bank this past weekend, a coalition of human rights organizations said in a joint statement Wednesday that "the international community must swiftly and decisively pressure the government of Israel to halt these attacks and urgently de-escalate the situation."
"With international attention centered on Gaza, the government of Israel has not only allowed settler violence to spiral but also persisted in the expansion of Israeli settlements built on Palestinian land and unlawfully seized Palestinian territory by designating it as 'state land,' blatantly violating international law," the groups noted. "Concerted efforts are needed to tackle the root cause of settler violence by permanently dismantling settlement outposts and ensuring the safe return of displaced Palestinians to their lands."
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Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden took to the floor of the U.S. Senate on Tuesday to speak out against a chilling mass surveillance bill that lawmakers are working to rush through the upper chamber and send to President Joe Biden's desk by the end of the week.
The measure in question would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for two years and massively expand the federal government's warrantless surveillance power by requiring a wide range of businesses and individuals to cooperate with spying efforts.
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Wyden said the process "can all happen without any oversight whatsoever: The FISA Court won't know about it, Congress won't know about it. Americans who are handed these directives will be forbidden from talking about it. Unless they can afford high-priced lawyers with security clearances who know their way around the FISA Court, they will have no recourse at all."
Wyden's remarks came after the Senate narrowly approved a motion Tuesday to proceed to the FISA reauthorization bill ahead of Section 702's expiration at the end of the week. The Oregon senator, an outspoken privacy advocate, was among the seven members of the Democratic caucus who voted against the procedural motion.
Despite its grave implications for civil liberties, the bill has drawn relatively little vocal opposition in the Senate. A final vote could come as soon as Thursday.
Titled Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act (RISAA), the legislation passed the Republican-controlled House last week after lawmakers voted down an amendment that would have added a search warrant requirement to Section 702.
The authority allows U.S. agencies to spy on non-citizens located outside of the country, but it has been abused extensively by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and National Security Agency to collect the communications of American lawmakers, activists, journalists, and others without a warrant.
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More than two dozen House Democrats on Tuesday challenged the Biden administration's claim that Israel is using U.S.-supplied weapons in compliance with domestic and international law—an assertion made amid an ongoing World Court probe of "plausibly" genocidal Israeli policies and practices in Gaza.
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