From the early days of the Trump presidency, I wondered how long it would take before his actions led to a constitutional crisis. This was a man who appeared to view the U.S. Constitution and the laws upon which our country was founded as an impediment requiring a workaround. As a man who had led his family business without even oversight from a board of directors, he seemed to envy dictators such as Kim Jong Il and Vladimir Putin.

When James Comey was fired as FBI director because of the Russia investigation, it ended up resulting in the appointment of a special prosecutor, Robert Mueller, the former director of the FBI.

Mueller indicted numerous Trump associates for a variety of federal crimes, many as a result of their lies about Russian involvement in the Trump campaign. It certainly appeared for a while that Trump would initiate a constitutional crisis by firing Mueller. For whatever reason it didn’t happen, perhaps because his advisers told him that it would invite impeachment proceedings.

Now we have the Trump wall; you may remember from the 2016 campaign that Trump promised that he would build a wall on our southern border and Mexico would pay for it. When Mexico refused, he turned to the American public, but, after a lengthy fight that shut down the American government for 35 days, Congress stood with Mexico and declined to provide the money.

In an effort to circumvent Article I of the U.S. Constitution, the president declared a national emergency under which he would spend money on the wall that Congress specifically allocated for other purposes. We finally have our constitutional crisis.

For Trump, the real crisis is that Congress refused to give him what he wanted in the new budget. Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, Trump’s key advisers, were adamant that he should not sign the bills that would keep the government open. Given that nobody in the Republican Party leadership had the stomach for another shutdown, Trump signed the budget bills and opted to declare a national emergency where, clearly, none exists. He admitted as much in his press conference when, in response to a question, he stated that he didn’t really need to do this but it would speed things up in getting the wall built. His words are likely to appear in legal briefs that will be filed against the declaration of a national emergency.

First, however, each house of Congress may vote as to whether to terminate the national emergency. It is virtually certain to be terminated by the House, and the Senate is likely to agree as only 51 votes would be needed. Trump will probably exercise his veto, at which time it will return to Congress. While his veto might be overridden in the House, it is unlikely that a two-thirds majority can be found in the Senate.

The attorney general of California has already declared that he will file a lawsuit, as will the ACLU. His position is that Trump is harming the people of California by invalidly allocating resources that were otherwise designated by Congress.

It remains to be seen whether the courts agree that the state of California has standing in its suit. In any case, those with land on the border, which the government will try to claim under eminent domain, are certain to file suit to prevent the acquisition of their land. This is a class that clearly has the standing to sue.

This one will clearly work its way through the U.S. judicial system and eventually end up in the Supreme Court. Forget the other eight justices; this decision will end up with John Roberts and, based upon what we’ve seen of his rulings in the past, he is likely to support the Constitution and invalidate the declaration of national emergency. Would this be the end of Trump’s wall? Thankfully, it probably will.

— Rich Belzer lives in Bend.