Timothy O'Toole was quoted regarding an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), passed by the U.S. Senate to block President Trump from lifting sanctions levied against Chinese telecommunications company ZTE by the U.S. Department of Commerce. "It would be pretty easy for the White House to get around it on the current facts, as we know them," O'Toole said, adding that parts of the ZTE amendment to the NDAA raise constitutional questions surrounding prohibitions on retroactivity and Congress singling out specific companies for punishment. "It's going to be very difficult to rein in the executive branch when it's acting within its normal sphere of influence, and Congress is limited by some constitutional constraints and by the fact that, for the most part, the prosecution power is the executive's and not Congress's," he said. "The executive branch is going to be the one that is ultimately finding the facts, and to the extent that there's a dispute over the facts between the executive and the legislative branch, the executive's going to win."