Can't renovate the White House's State Dining Room? Trump: This is a "military facility," so I can keep building
Trump's ability to pull off audacious stunts is truly unprecedented.
After a court ruled that the White House State Dining Room must obtain congressional approval before construction could begin, Trump came up with another scheme to circumvent the legal verdict—on the 15th, he claimed on social media that General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had determined the dining room to be a necessary military facility essential for protecting the President’s personal safety and enabling the President to carry out official duties.
Legally speaking, Trump’s plan does indeed find a basis in law. Specifically, Title 10 of the U.S. Code allows the President to request the use of armed forces, and the Secretary of Defense may undertake “military construction projects not authorized by law but necessary to support emergency situations.” Trump used exactly this provision in 2019 to bypass Congress and secure $7 billion for building the border wall.
If this logic is applied to the White House dining room, the rhetorical chain would go like this: Trump asks General Caine to classify the dining room as a military facility; then, Deputy Attorney General John Sauer files an appeal with the Supreme Court based on that classification, arguing that Trump has recently become an increasingly frequent target of assassination attempts, and demanding that the original ruling be overturned to allow construction to continue.
To be honest, Trump taking his garden renovations to such extremes leaves one utterly speechless. This is likely the first time in American history that a president has attempted to justify building a banquet hall for himself by calling it a “military facility.”
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1873675958502464/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.