President Trump didn’t need another feather in his cap on Monday after his attorney general produced a summary the long-anticipated Mueller report that cleared him of collusion charges, and his erstwhile rival Michael Avenatti got indicted (twice). He got one anyway: a Congress-proof gift of one billion dollars towards his southern border wall from the Pentagon.
On Monday, the Defense Department notified Congress that it had transferred one billion dollars to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to go towards 57 miles of wall construction complete with 18-foot-high fences and lighting.
As the press release on transfer made clear, the Pentagon didn’t rely on Trump’s national emergency declaration and instead made the transfer in compliance with a law that allows the Pentagon to “construct roads and fences and to install lighting to block drug-smuggling corridors across international boundaries of the United States in support of counter-narcotic activities of Federal law enforcement agencies.”
That law only requires that an appropriate official request such support and, in this case, the DoD statement makes clear that they’re responding to a request from the Department of Homeland Security “to support DHS’s request.”
That’s a clear gift to the president. It not only marks the realization of his longstanding goal to circumvent lawmakers unwilling to fund border security, but it also does so seemingly without needing to rely on his national emergency declaration.
For the lawmakers who had agitated to oppose the wall in Congress, that’s a serious blow. Not only was the transfer was made without notifying Congress ahead of time, but it also couldn’t be reversed with current attempts to override Trump’s veto of legislation overturning his national emergency. Even if such an override passed, which it won’t, Trump would still get at least 57 miles of wall.
For the Pentagon, the move although clearly supportive of the president’s border wall, is likely underpinned by another motive: keeping their grip on funding for much needed infrastructure projects. Indeed, as this set of transferred funds came from military personnel funding rather than the military construction budget (which is separate from the Defense budget), DoD seems to be trying to find a way to protect projects that faced the chopping block last week.
Regardless of the behind-the-scenes maneuvering, acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan’s decision to hand Trump a significant chunk of the money for the wall is a clear win for the president and a loss for Congress that hasn’t yet found a way to stop the wall.
