President Trump on Eminent Domain and the Border Wall

C-SPAN ^ | Jan 4, 2019 | Trump

[Yosemitest]

Right-Click on the link below, select 'open in new window', and watch in in a new window while you read the excerpt of the transcript.

President Trump on Eminent Domain and the Border Wall ( 2:15 )
President Trump explained the role that eminent domain would play in the creation of a border wall.
He explained the eminent domain process and why the government needs to use it.

THE PRESIDENT: ... As far as eminent domain, you’re right, a hundred percent.
Eminent domain is very interesting.
But without eminent domain,
you wouldn’t have any highways,
you wouldn’t have any schools,
you wouldn’t have any roadways.
What we’re doing with eminent domain is,
in many cases, we’ll make a deal upfront.
And we’ve already done that.
The Secretary has done a lot of that.
And if we can’t make a deal, we take the land, and we pay them through a court process —
which goes, actually, fairly quickly.
And we’re generous.
But we take the land.
Otherwise, you could never build anything. If you didn’t use eminent domain, you wouldn’t have one highway in this country.
You have to use eminent domain.
It’s actually something ... you don’t want to use it,
but if you’re going to do a stretch —
as an example, pipelines and other things that go
— you have to use eminent domain;
otherwise, you’d never be able to buy the land.

If we had one person that wouldn’t sell us —
out of hundreds,
just one;
it only takes one
— then we wouldn’t be able to build proper border security
because we’d have that big opening that I was talking about.

So what happens is some are paid upfront.
You make a deal upfront.
And we’re willing to do that in all cases.
And when they’re unwilling to make a deal, which also happens, then you go to court.
But in the meantime, we’re able to build the border security.
So I think it’s a fair process.
I think it’s a process that’s very necessary.
But I think it’s fair.

QUESTION: But that — couldn’t that hold up your wall ?

THE PRESIDENT: No, it’s not going to hold it up,
because under the military version of eminent domain,
and under, actually, Homeland Security,
we can do it before we even start.
Now, a lot of times we’ll make a deal,
and I would say a good percentage of the time we’re making deals.
We have already purchased a lot of it.
You know, a lot of the money that we’ve been given has already been spent on purchasing the land, the right of way.
It’s essentially a right of way.

So we are very, very far along on that.
But eminent domain is something that has to be used.
Usually you would say for anything that’s long, like a road, like a pipeline, or like ... a wall ... or a fence.

Okay ?
Thank you.
Good question.
It’s a good question.

Please.
Please, go ahead. ...

Here's the link to the full transcript of the entire Remarks by President Trump After Meeting with Congressional Leadership on Border Security Issued on January 4, 2019.

[Yosemitest]

Here's a link to 50 U.S. Code Chapter 34, the NATIONAL EMERGENCIES ACT,
and here's the link to SUBCHAPTER III - EXERCISE OF EMERGENCY POWERS AND AUTHORITIES (§ 1631).

So that's where Trump gets to power to declare this SITUATION, WITH ILLEGAL ALIENS CROSSING THE BORDER, a NATIONAL EMERGENCY .

[tomkat]

OUTSTANDING !

[dynoman]

April Ryan asked that question. She got way more than she asked for.

[proust]

I remember when freepers were arguing against Trump in the primaries due to his past experiences with eminent domain. Somehow that disqualified him from being worthy of the conservative vote.

How do you like him now?

[Jane Long]

😁

[Pollster1]

I remember when freepers were arguing against Trump . . . How do you like him now?

As one of those Freepers, I remember having that concern; using eminent domain made him look like an insider. Trump is a former democrat who donated generously to some of the most evil democrats in our country, and that also made me nervous. Then Cruz blamed Trump for democrat-initiated violence, and that silliness convinced me that Trump was the best among a questionable set of options - risky but better than the alternatives.

I have never in my life been so thrilled to be so wrong. More than any president in my lifetime, Trump's tenure has been defined by keeping his word on campaign pledges. Eminent Domain for its real purpose - to perform the constitutionally-mandated duties of FedGov? That's why we voted for President Trump!

[vette6387]

“April Ryan asked that question. She got way more than she asked for.”

You mean Angela Davis’ “sister?”

[Yosemitest]

I was one of the ones that argued against was Trump did to Vera Coking.

Vera Coking walks past Donald Trump, obscured against wall at left, in a courtroom hallway
at Atlantic County Superior Court on Feb. 13, 1997.
... Trump wanted Coking's house - - not to live in, but as a place to park limousines for his casino next door.

"It is a classic case of a schoolyard bully growing up," said Clint Bolick, who co-founded the legal institute that defended Coking in a 1990s lawsuit with Trump ... "He's a thug."

Coking and her husband bought the white, three-story house at 127 Columbia Pl. in 1961, long before the area was transformed by mega-casinos.
She raised her children there.
For a time, she operated it as a boarding house.

... Coking, who is now more than 90 years old and was not available to be interviewed, was having none of it.
This was her "dream house," said Dana Berliner ...

Coking held firm, even as the 22-story Trump Plaza soared outside her windows with its ever-flashing lights.
The house was deteriorating, but Coking's will wasn't.
Demolition crews had set fire to her roof, broken windows and smashed up much of the third floor, according to her attorneys.
Still, she didn't move.

... Trump, Coking and the casino authority pounded away at one another in court.
Then, one day in the summer of 1998, the Superior Court of New Jersey put an end to the conflict.
The court ruled that the casino authority and Trump were wrong.
The government couldn't take Coking's house and let Trump have it.

That kind of ABUSE of "eminent domain" is wrong, and the court ruled against Trump.

Now, the border wall is about NATIONAL SECURITY, not taking property so a PRIVATE COMPANY can make money.

Do you have any more STUPID questions ?

[blueplum]

you’re seriously not going to bring up Coking are u? the one with the rotting boarding house that Wyatt (I think it was Wyatt - been a while) built a steel framework completely around, with the intent of putting a parking garage Above her, and that sued to KEEP the gawkish framework around her house when Trump offered to tear the structure down - and then sued Trump for removing it and allowing daylight in the windows for the first time in 20 years while also putting a park next door for her? that Coking? cry me a river on that grifter. A few other details - the third floor had been uninhabitable for some time before Trump got involved, and there were numerous broken and boarded/painted up windows (probably why she didn’t want the steel structure removed) evidenced in before and after photos and she was years behind on taxes. So while the city couldn’t possess for taxes solely to sell to Trump, it would have been Trump’s right, along with any other private citizen, to purchase the property at a tax lein sale to the highest bidder. And had she not had a lawyer that brought Trump in as a red herring on the tax issue for the media to dine on, she’d have had no continuance and she’d have lost the house for nonpayment with nary a sentence in the local paper other than, another eyesore is gone.

[Pelham]

great post

[BeauBo]

“We have already purchased a lot of it. You know, a lot of the money that we’ve been given has already been spent on purchasing the land, the right of way.”

“So we are very, very far along on that.”

This has been going on since the Secure Fence Act of 2006. A great deal of the work was done then, and several cases stewed in court for 5-10 years appealing things.

But the bottom line is that the processes are in place, and very well tested, to take what is needed to maintain schedule. They will settle on the price later, if a landowner is a holdout who refuses to settle up front.

[Yosemitest]

I recommend

HTML Sandbox 2008

and A guide to using HTML on Free Republic in 5 lines

It will make your comments understandable, and not like someone that's just out of grade school who believed all the garbage that their friends spewed.

[piasa]

A border fence is arguably for national defense, but he makes me nervous that he has an overly broad idea of what eminent domain was for when he includes non-defense installation such as schools, businesses and so on.

What makes the country great isn’t another mini-mall or golf course on stolen land, it’s the once-held not too oft forgotten belief that property rights were fundamental to liberty.

[Yosemitest]

Like the article said:

"... In the summer of 1998, the Superior Court of New Jersey put an end to the conflict.

The court ruled that the casino authority and Trump were WRONG.
The government could NOT take Coking's house and let Trump have it. "

[dynoman]

April's kind of funny, she asks the the question in her pompous way, as if Trump's an idiot. Trump is super respectful, answers, says her name, and even tells her good question! She's flabbergasted!

[wildcard_redneck]

“How do you like him now?”

Love President Trump. There are a lot of Romney-bots here that don’t.

[eartick]

Yes finally a president with the cajones to IMPLEMENT the laws that are on the books.

I am very hopeful of completion of our southern border security. Without it we are doomed as a nation and if this is not a national emergency, nothing is.

[eartick]

How do you like him now?

I am very optimistic in the outcome. ED when used for the right purpose, such as national security for all Americans is the right direction. ED to benefit a globalist's pocket book is wrong and has been used before.

We had over 2500 acres taken from our family to build a training airport for our Navy. We were compensated at the time but hated to lose the property. In my view this is the proper use of ED.

[Yosemitest]

I'm happy to see it also.
I just wish he had a court and prosecutors that would go full-force in charging, trying, and punishing all those DemocRATS and "Establishment Republicans" who refuse to enforce ALL the federal laws in our country !
Jail for many years, along with MAXIMUM FINES ... to all those LAWLESS pieces of human debris !

[BobL]

I love how his HAIR is still protruding, even though he’s otherwise completely blocked.