Napolitano Blasts Trump’s Federal Funding of the Border Wall: ‘No President Should Have Unconstitutional Powers’

Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst Andrew Napolitano hit President Donald Trump this week by likening his nontraditional funding of a controversial border wall as a violation of the Constitution and presidents having too much power.

In his latest Fox News video column and in an op-ed for Washington Times, Napolitano focused on how Trump is appropriating federal funds to build his border wall, even after Congress refused to allocate money for him to do that. Napolitano also connected this to Trump’s use of tariffs in his trade war with China, and also with the separation of migrant families detained at the border.

Napolitano lamented that these excessive power are not a phenomenon unique to Trump, but the result of a trend that started decades ago among his predecessors. Napolitano explained that Trump’s manner of using these powers have brought this issue to the forefront, saying POTUS is “using powers Congress gave to him and to former presidents that ought to be done by Congress.”

After explaining how the government abandoned Madisonian ideas about the separations of powers, Napolitano concluded that “the temptation of tyranny” will arise if Congress keeps handing power over to Trump.

“After years of faithless Congresses legally but unconstitutionally ceding power to the presidency, we have arrived where we are today – a president who spends unappropriated funds, raises taxes, defies courts and changes immigration laws on his own. I have written before that the Republicans who rejoice in this will weep over it when a Democrat is in the White House. No president should have unconstitutional powers.

Watch above, via Fox News.