Lawmakers push back at Trump's Pentagon funding grab for wall
Lawmakers are calling out the Trump administration over its latest plan to shift billions of dollars meant for the Pentagon's budget to instead pay for border wall construction.
The top Democrat and Republican on the House Armed Services Committee are among the numerous lawmakers that last week pushed back on President Trump's move to divert $3.8 billion from various weapons programs into its counter-drug fund to be used to build his signature project.
"The re-programming announced today is contrary to Congress's constitutional authority, and I believe that it requires Congress to take action. I will be working with my colleagues to determine the appropriate steps to take," committee ranking member Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) said in a statement in response to the funding move.
Though he did not mention Trump by name, Thornberry said such a reprogram attempt "undermines the principle of civilian control of the military and is in violation of the separation of powers within the Constitution."
He added that funding for wall construction "must come through the Department of Homeland Security rather than diverting critical military resources that are needed and in law."
Meanwhile, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said the administration was stealing the cash for the sake of fulfilling a Trump campaign promise.
"The President is obsessed with fulfilling a campaign promise at the expense of our national security. This Administration has already stolen billions from the Department of Defense in order to begin building the President's vanity wall and today they are doubling down on bad policy," Smith said in a statement.
All Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee Democrats also called the transfer "divisive" and "poisonous to the relationship we seek on national defense matters."
"As was the case last year, the Department of Defense did not request, and the Congress did not provide, any defense funds for border wall construction," the senators wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Mark Esper last Thursday.
"This repeated maneuver to transfer funds once again is in contrast to the long-established processes involving consultation with the defense oversight committees of Congress on reprogrammings and transfers. Engaging in this scheme again is not only divisive, but also poisonous to the relationship we seek on national defense matters - which should be above this type of rancor and partisanship."
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