[frog in a pot]

Then why did he just sign a bill forbidding him from building a wall along the border, except for one small segment where the local, corrupt officials will be empowered to forbid him from building the wall?
How much of an emergency can it be to overturn a law that he just signed?

That does sound troublesome on the face of it.

Do you think it possible based on the advice of his legal team he believes his subsequent emergency declaration frees him to take whatever measures he deems necessary to deal with the emergency?

It ultimately may be significant that the rabid Congress is willing to provide taxpayer monies for a portion of the Wall and then in the same instrument prescribes other measures that obviously make the Wall a waste.

[9YearLurker]

I think his legal team has produced mixed results to date, but certainly couldn’t have had time to go over the 1000+ bill with any care.

[monkeyshine]

That part of the bill is irrelevant. They need to pass a law that would strip away POTUS power to declare an emergency and re-allocate funds in the process. They likely won’t pass such a law and no POTUS would willingly agree to sign such a law; nor would Congress really want to for fear of things like Katrina. Sometimes the Executive needs to act fast.

There are several dozen POTUS ‘emergencies’ still ongoing some going back to the Clinton era. The legal territory has long been settled. Congress can’t claw it back, SCOTUS has affirmed it, and most challenges you can think of either have no standing or are not legally ‘ripe’ eg. they have to exhaust all other administrative options before bringing a suit. Which is ironic because these are some of the same laws that the government put in place to protect themselves from being sued by citizens.