President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency — along with other measures he will take to move around money — will allow him to access roughly $8 billion to build a border wall, senior administration officials told reporters on a press call Friday morning. They expect it to fund the 234 miles of barriers that he had sought to build with his $5.7 billion request that Congress rebuffed.
Congress, in a spending deal both chambers passed Thursday, instead has appropriated just $1.375 billion, which is part of the $8 billion estimate the White House is now touting.
“We’ve been through a shutdown, we’ve now been through three weeks of allowing Congress to try to work their will. They’re simply incapable of providing the amount of money necessary,” White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said.
The bulk of the difference is being made up with $3.6 billion that will be unlocked with Trump’s emergency declaration, which he was scheduled to make Friday morning. That move is expected to face various legal challenges. The seniors officials on the call declined to discuss the White House’s strategy to defend it in court and from whatever pushback Trump gets from Congress.
Among the tools at Democrats’ disposal is a law that allows them to bring up for a vote in the House a measure rejecting the emergency declaration. The law triggers a process setting up an automatic vote in the Senate after the House takes up the measure. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had warned Trump that a national declaration would split Republicans, who fear it is a dangerous expansion of executive branch power, but McConnell now says he supports Trump’s decision.
In additional to the national emergency funds, another $600 million can be tapped from a Department of Treasury forfeiture fund, the officials said Friday. Some $2.5 billion more will be drawn from other Department of Defense accounts, and particularly from pools of money set aside for counter-drug trafficking programs. Funding for disaster relief for Texas and Puerto Rico is not on the table, the officials said.
And for those of you looking for the (inevitable) Putin connection, a likely source of a significant chunk of that military construction budget is the overseas projects in places like Poland where we’re building up a defense against Russia…
That wall will keep out a few Mexicans but it will eliminate a lot of barriers for a Russian invasion.
Lets just get rid of the F*cker any way we can. I am sick of it.
Please be the first to violate the Third Amendment. Just to be first at something. So much winning.
There’s the Impeachable Offense and it doesn’t even need investigating. WTF are they waiting for?
Who is impeaching him exactly? The GOP Senate who told him to do this. The brave country before party GOP senators who are totally not going to face backlash from the donors and primary voters for throwing out a GOP President. You think this is Trump yanking an entire party to crazy town. You think Pence, that brave slightly orange moron wouldn’t sell out everything to keep support and get himself easily elected by a stupid ignorant group that is too chickenshit to label themselves as Republicans so they say I’m Independent.