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The Magic Words Trump Uses to Legally Justify His Harebrained Schemes

newrepublic.com · 9h · first reportShare

President Donald Trump appears to think that the phrase “national security” is a get-out-of-court-free card whenever he wants to do (or get away with) something. Thanks to the Supreme Court, one can hardly blame him for drawing this conclusion. Last month, the justices allowed his illegal White House ballroom project to move forward after a lower court had blocked it. Part of the conservative majority’s reasoning was that the executive branch had declared that the project was necessary on national-security grounds, citing sworn statements from a variety of top government officials about the importance of a bunker being built under the ballroom. Trump and his aides appear to have taken that lesson—that invoking “national security” is a good way to get what you want—to heart. Earlier this week, he announced that another planned project in the nation’s capital would get a militarized makeover. Trump has long sought to build a grandiose and gaudy triumphal arch on a roundabout between the