President Trump has an unlikely ally in his move to declare a national emergency, freeing up money to build a border wall despite bipartisan opposition — Capitol Hill’s own think tank.

Despite promises from Democratic leaders to sue to stop Trump, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has determined that the move may be legal and effective.

In its most recent report on the border wall, CRS said that Congress actually wrote the legal path for Trump to follow to tap into Pentagon construction money to build the wall, and a new analysis of that report confirms that the president appears to have the green light from Capitol Hill.

“Many in Congress are condemning President Donald Trump's just announced decision to declare a national emergency to help build a wall on the southern border, but such a declaration would apparently be both legal and effective,” said legal scholar and George Washington University Law School Professor John Banzhaf.



"While many claim that any emergency declaration would be unconstitutional, many legal scholars - including Prof. Banzhaf - doubt it

A statute authorizes it and

dozens of such emergencies have been declared without a successful challenge,

Banzhaf GWU Lawhttps://t.co/E0i7Ir3r4M pic.twitter.com/74tZRQlHdB — John Banzhaf (@ProfBanzhaf) February 15, 2019



He said that the CRS review of legal angles Trump can use to build the wall shows at least two paths to success, one that does not even require the White House to declare a national emergency.

But since Trump plans to make that announcement today, Banzhaf in his analysis focused on the National Emergencies Act and the loopholes Congress provided to the president, such as giving the president alone the right to declare a national emergency.

While the act said that Congress can vote to terminate an emergency, it is unlikely that it will win enough support to succeed, and certainly not enough votes to override a Trump veto, said Banzhaf in his latest blog post.

He also detailed the paths around legal challenges, though he said that it is likely that the challenge by Democrats will end up being decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The key elements of Banzhaf’s analysis are here:

