HOUSTON: A federal appeals court on Friday revived a House challenge of President Donald Trumps use of Defense Department money to build a border wall after Democrats refused to provide funding he requested.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed a lower courts dismissal of the House Democrats lawsuit. The appeals panel found the House had been wrongly cut out of its constitutionally indispensable legislative role when Trump unilaterally moved about $8 billion to border wall construction.
Congress power to appropriate spending is a core structural protection of the Constitution a wall, so to speak, between the branches of government that prevents encroachment of the Houses and Senates power of the purse, the panel wrote.
The case now returns to the court of U.S. District Judge Trevor…