Many years ago my mentor explained to me how the director of the lab had almost gotten himself in trouble. The sort of trouble that ends with “I hereby sentence you to X years.” All because he failed to honor the color of money.
“Color of money” is a term of art within some parts of the government. In this case the lab had a considerable budget. They had been authorized by Congress to purchase a supercomputer. They ordered the supercomputer but were told it would be a while to get it. “A while” was measured in quarters.
The lab needed a supercomptuter now. They were offered a different model that could be delivered and set up within a couple of months.
This is what they decided to do. The problem was they required a few million dollars to buy this second supercomputer. This required another authorization from Congress.
The request was put in, money was coming, it would be there in just a few weeks.
The issue?
That second computer was very popular. There were other people who had cash now to buy it.
The lab director decided he used money that he was authorized to spend to buy the supercomputer. That money was marked (colored) for a different use later in the year.
A few weeks later, Congress authorized money for the second supercomputer, and all the accounts balanced perfectly.
The issue? Using the wrong colored money was technically not allowed. It was the sort of thing that gets you jail time if the powers that be decide they don’t like you.
It appears that this is what happened to Trump
the President relied on 10 U.S.C. ยง12406(3)
This statue has specific language: unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.
.
And that is what happened. The government argues that “the regular forces” means regular federal employees and law enforcement. The courts are saying that “the regular forces” means the military.
Since the administration did not argue that they could not take care of the problem by deploying the U.S. Marines, they had not met the requirement of “unable with the regular forces”.
Now this is where it gets interesting. The court did not address the question of “Can the administration deploy regular forces?”
The Posse Comitatus Act forbids deploying regular forces to enforce laws except under certain circumstances.
But, as Justice Kavanaugh pointed out, there are other statutes the administration can use to authorize the deployment of “the regular forces”.
In other words, it looks like the city of Chicago is about to get what they asked for, good and hard.