Ex-national security officials to issue statement slamming Trump’s emergency declaration: WaPo

A group of former national security officials are set to issue a statement criticizing President Trump’s national security declaration, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

The 58 former senior national security officials signing on to the statement include former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and John Kerry, former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, former State Department counselor Eliot Cohen and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Thomas Pickering.

{mosads}The bipartisan group is set to release the statement a day before the House is expected to vote on a resolution blocking the declaration.

“Under no plausible assessment of the evidence is there a national emergency today that entitles the president to tap into funds appropriated for other purposes to build a wall at the southern border,” they told the Post.

Trump declared a national emergency after Congress passed a federal spending bill that denied him the $5.7 billion for wall construction he had initially demanded.

The emergency declaration would divert funds toward a border wall.

In the 11-page statement, the former officials challenged the basis for the emergency declaration.

They said that illegal border crossings are at nearly 40-year lows, citing Department of Homeland Security statistics, according to the Post.

The statement also said there is no emergency related to terrorism or violent crime at the border.

The group also notes that “the overwhelming majority of opioids” that enter the United States are brought in through legal ports of entry, citing the Justice Department.

They will reportedly argue that the declaration “will undermine U.S. national security and foreign policy interests” and that “a wall is unnecessary to support the use of the armed forces,” as the administration has said.

The statement challenging the emergency declaration will join five court cases against Trump’s move.