When Trump and his incompetent sycophantic toadies are gone, one of the orders of business for those who follow will be to search through our laws and close all the “national security” loopholes that the Trump Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight (seemingly literally in the case of Triump’s Folly - the Iran War) have relied upon for justify, well… nearly everything they do.
Blocking Windmills? Banning Press? Building an Arch? Trump Cites National Security.
The president is increasingly invoking the rationale while facing legal challenges to his plans, even in more curious cases like his triumphal arch, which he says will now include snipers and drones.
As President Trump tries to barrel through legal and political pushback on fronts ranging from press freedom to his triumphal arch, he is increasingly using a justification he believes will allow him to do what he wants: national security.
The president has cited national security as a reason to build a fancy new ballroom on White House grounds and to investigate leaks to journalists that embarrassed his administration.
He has invoked national security in stripping union rights from thousands of federal workers and deploying the military to the Mexican border to crack down on migrants.
He has cited national security as a reason to pause the construction of wind farms off the East Coast and exempt oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from protections for endangered species of whales.
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Perhaps nowhere was the reasoning more sudden, or curious, than his announcement on Sunday that he was transforming his plans for a 250-foot triumphal arch on a Washington roundabout, which are under legal challenge.
What was envisioned as a project to honor America’s 250th anniversary, Mr. Trump said, would now also be a military depot, outfitted with “large numbers of drones,” snipers and ammunition. It is unclear what the arch, which would lie between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, would protect.
Trump cites national security, midterms coverage to defend press ban
The president’s lawyers are asking the courts to overrule a longstanding precedent that protects journalists' access to the White House.
Yes - Trump has invoked national security as the reason for banning CNN, MSNow and Politico form the White House Press Corps”
President Donald Trump is asking federal courts to let him pick and choose which media outlets get White House access and launching a legal drive to overturn a decades-old precedent that provides broad protections for journalists who work in the West Wing.
In a court filing Tuesday night, the Justice Department defended Trump’s decision to ban POLITICO, CNN and MS NOW from the White House, describing it as a move rooted in the outlets’ publication of sensitive information.
“The President determined that Plaintiffs have failed to maintain minimum professional journalistic standards by publishing classified and national security information,” Trump's brief says.
The filing, a response to an emergency lawsuit brought by the three news organizations demanding immediate restoration of their West Wing access, cited several stories by each outlet, including accounts about the state of the war with Iran, depleted U.S. munition stockpiles and details of a leak probe related to unflattering stories about FBI Director Kash Patel. The filing criticizes POLITICO for publishing a handout that the Secret Service provided to Senate Republicans to justify the construction of the president’s new White House ballroom.
The Justice Department brief also attached letters the administration purportedly sent to each outlet earlier Tuesday citing those stories as the basis for Trump’s decision to revoke their White House access, giving them until Friday to contest it.
However, the letters — which are unsigned and do not appear on official letterhead — do not claim that any of the cited stories contained classified information. In addition, some of the examples don’t appear to have any national security nexus at all. The letter addressed to POLITICO complains about a report that described bad “vibes” at the recent GOP midterm convention in Texas.
Justice Department lawyers grudgingly acknowledge that the after-the-fact letters can’t satisfy the requirements of a 49-year-old D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals precedent Sherrill v. Knight, which concluded that the government can’t selectively bar news outlets from White House press spaces based on the perceived viewpoint of their reporting.
He’s the ”Boy Who Cried Wolf”. Of course, the moral of that story is that liars are not believed – even when they speak the truth. Unfortunately, in the case of national security, courts and Congress have traditionally been deferential to claims of national security. The Brennan Center for Justice has a good take on this (it’s worth the read):
Not a single doctrine but a set of ideas, national security deference manifests in legal decisions that limit a court’s authority to hear a case or particular claims, reduce the legal standard of review for a claim, or defer to the executive’s conclusion on a factual question.
So - tariffs, ballroom, arch, media access, windmills, oil and gas drilling, supposed drug smuggling. They’ve all been justified in order to by-pass or break laws.
As I’ve previously written, we’ve become a country governed by governments that love secrecy:
When it comes to information, the foundational presumption should always be to lean towards disclosure rather than classification or withholding. s
The “national security” dodge needs to be rectified. In law and in the courts. Yes, it is obviously necessary at times. But using it to do end runs around valid laws and to achieve political goals has to be a non-starter.
