In a letter to White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan, House Democrats slammed President Trump’s supposed proposal to dump detained immigrants in sanctuary cities and requested documents related to said plans.
Reps. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and Bennie Thompson (D-MS) called the move a “bizarre and unlawful” attempt to “score political points” and requested emails and other communications about the proposal, which was reportedly rejected by ICE officials twice as “inappropriate.”
“These reports are alarming,” they wrote, referencing reports that the Trump wanted to relocate those detained after illegally crossing the border to punish Democrats who didn’t support his funding requests. “Not only does the administration lack the legal authority to transfer detainees in this manner, it is shocking that the President and senior administration officials are even considering manipulating decisions for purely political reasons.”
The White House initially shrugged off reports of the plan, which was characterized as a one-off proposal that was rejected. But Trump confirmed last week that he was indeed still interested in the idea.
Read the letter below:
An issue Dems should pursue is Trump’s proclivity for saying everything he spouts that draws protest from legal and ethical circles is a “joke” and he really didn’t mean it. How the hell you hold someone accountable for their public presentation of policies and ideas when all they have to say is it was a joke is a puzzle. I’d like Nadler to ferret out the admin officials that overheard Trump promise to pardon Kevin McAleenan for breaking immigration laws, seemingly such an affront to the rule of law it needs investigated. But even if they were found, and testified Trump was serious as hell, what good would it do if Trump claimed they overheard a joke? Claiming something you’ve said is a joke damned near renders you unaccountable for an entire slew of offenses.
Order a Marine sniper to kill Bernie Sanders? Ha, can’t believe the guy took me seriously, I was joking!! Har, har, har!! What, you want to question me even suggesting it in the first place?! Why, I was clearly joking?!!
If he issued an official presidential statement (which twitter apparently is) that they have the right to do it, there must be a legal analysis backing that up, right?
Dems request documents and Trump will refuse to do send them. So then Dems will send a subpoena which will get ignored, precipitating a court fight. And by the time the case is settled, we’ll be well into 2020, with a thousand other issues to fight over.
This can’t be the best way to run government.
That’s a faulty progression of events. Dems THREATEN to issue subpoenas, but they never actually do it.