Did Trump inadvertently say that building the wall on an urgent basis isn't really needed? It sure sounds like that's what he said. And why is it such an emergency now? After all he first started talking about the need for one back when he was running for president and after he won, his party held all branches of government for two years and Trump wasn't pressuring the republicans to build the wall. But suddenly it's imperative that it needs to be built after the democrats took the house and after last year when Trump turned down the democrat's offering of $25 billion for it?

Likely to be used in future lawsuits: Trump on his national emergency declaration: "I didn't need to do this. But I'd rather do it much faster ... I just want to get it done faster." Via CNN pic.twitter.com/HcPrQdhRJ9

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 15, 2019

House Judiciary Committee Probes Trump National Emergency After Contradictory Statement

The House Judiciary Committee announced that it will investigate President Trump's national emergency declaration after Trump admitted during a Friday press conference that he "didn't need to do this."

In a six-page letter signed by Democrats who control the committee, the Judiciary Committee seeks several documents from the White House, including any opinions solicited from the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) and Department of Defense. The letter also asks the White House to justify its legal basis for the determination that "there is an "emergency" at the southern border," and why a border wall is "necessary to support" a "use of the armed forces" at the border.

The Democrat-controlled Judiciary committee is commencing "an immediate investigation into this matter, which raises both serious constitutional and statutory issues," according to the letter.

The letter also demands all communications between the White House and DOJ between November 1 and February 15 related to the national emergency and seizure of any private property.

President Trump may have derailed this own national emergency, which he declared on Friday to authorize an additional $7 billion for his long-promised border wall.

While speaking with reporters outside the White House, Trump said "I didn’t need to do this. But I’d rather do it much faster."

5 ways Trump’s national emergency declaration could be stopped

President Donald Trump has officially declared a national emergency in order to secure funding for his border wall. But he’s also ready to be challenged in court, as he said at the announcement Friday morning.

“We will have a national emergency, and we will then be sued,” Trump said on Friday, outlining the steps he expected the lawsuit to take all the way to the Supreme Court.

Trump is issuing the declaration under the National Emergencies Act of 1976, which lets presidents issue an emergency declaration but under certain constraints — namely, Trump can only use specific powers Congress has already codified by law, and he has to say which powers he’s using. The act doesn’t define what counts as an emergency.

As Vox’s Sean Illing, who spoke with 11 experts about the legality of Trump’s declaration, laid out, there’s enough ambiguity in the law to let Trump declare an emergency. But the maneuver may not stand up to legal scrutiny once challenged in court. He is effectively trying to circumvent Congress — which is supposed to have the “power of the purse” and has decided against funding his border wall — and it’s not clear whether Trump can actually use the armed forces for the project. And his claim that there’s an emergency at the border that necessitates a border wall is dubious.

1) A joint resolution of termination contesting the status of the emergency

2) Congressional Democrats sue the White House

3) Landowners sue the White House

4) Liberal activist groups sue the White House

5) California and other states sue

Democrats put a couple of provisions in the budget deal passed today and one was to protect the butterfly center. The Butterfly Center has sued the government after learning that it's going to be destroyed so that the wall can be built. Today a judge ruled against them, but with Trump declaring this emergency they may have grounds to sue again. What we need is for people to take over the center with guns like the Bundys did with that center in Oregon. /s?

Shutdown deal includes language to protect a butterfly sanctuary and other landmarks from border barrier

U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar said Thursday that he's added language to a compromise bill aimed at avoiding another government shutdown that would prohibit border fencing at five major landmarks in the Rio Grande Valley.

The five cultural sites lie in the path of $641 million worth of planned border fencing that was funded in the 2018 federal budget. Construction started earlier this month at a federal wildlife refuge, sparking outrage among community members and activists.

The landmarks include major wildlife areas like the National Butterfly Center, a 100-acre nature preserve that attracts hundreds of butterfly species. The center filed a restraining order late Monday night to prevent the federal government from building a barrier on its property or crossing through it to build elsewhere — but a judge dismissed their case on Thursday.

Other places that would be off-limits for fencing are:

- Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park, an internationally recognized spot for bird watching
- The Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, which was exempted from border barriers in last year’s budget
- La Lomita, a historic Catholic chapel that lost a court fight a week ago to prevent the government from surveying the chapel’s land
- A tract of land that will soon be home to the commercial spaceport for SpaceX, a space transportation company in which Tesla founder Elon Musk is the lead designer