New York City has joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration with the cities of Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon, to dispute their designation as "anarchist jurisdictions," as the president ratchets up his threat to pull funding from localities that he sees as home to his political enemies.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and the head of the city's Law Department, James Johnson, told reporters on Thursday that the lawsuit was filed after the Trump administration added a component to a federal transit administration research grant in early October that would block the cities deemed as "anarchist jurisdictions" from receiving any money.
"We're not going to wait for them to embed this provision in any other grants," Johnson said, noting that the city relied on $12 billion in federal grants for its most recent budget. "We need the funds we don't want to see them threatened any further."
Mayor de Blasio called the Trump administration's decision "a totally political action that would actually undermine the lives of New Yorkers."
"The only anarchy in this country is coming from the White House," de Blasio said.
The complaint itself echoes what many legal experts have said since President Trump issued the memo in September: it is unconstitutional for the executive branch to unilaterally cut off funding that has been allocated by Congress, and if the Trump wanted to cut off previously approved funding, he would need Congress to pass legislation first. The memo does not contain a single legal citation.
"My Administration will do everything in its power to prevent weak mayors and lawless cities from taking Federal dollars while they let anarchists harm people, burn buildings, and ruin lives and businesses," Trump tweeted at the time.
A few weeks later, Attorney General Barr designated New York, Seattle, and Portland as "anarchist jurisdictions," whose leaders were "imped[ing] their own law enforcement officers and agencies from doing their jobs," and cited examples of protest and rising rates of violent crime as justification.
The cities' lawsuit called the Trump administration's attempt at branding them as zones of anarchy "an oxymoronic designation without precedent in American jurisprudence," and asks a judge to immediately prevent the Trump administration from tying more federal applications for funding to the memo.
"Executive agencies may only act within the scope of authority granted them by Congress and must engage in reasoned decision-making when they do act; yet they have not done this," the complaint reads. "No act of Congress gives the Attorney General the authority to designate cities as “anarchist jurisdictions” from which federal funding may be withheld."
Johnson noted that the suit was being filed on the west coast because that is where the Trump administration has been the most heavy-handed, sending federal agents in "battle dress uniforms" to Portland, where they have arrested protesters in unmarked vans, and shot them with tear gas and rubber bullets.
Plainclothes U.S. Marshals also appeared to carry out a public execution of Michael Reinoehl in suburban Washington in early September. Reinoehl had allegedly killed a Trump supporter at a right-wing protest in Portland in late August.
"We sent in the U.S. Marshals. Took 15 minutes, it was over. Fifteen minutes, it was over; we got him," Trump told the crowd at a rally earlier this month.
The Department of Justice has not yet responded to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
You can read the full complaint below.
