The Democratic chairman of the House Armed Services Committee is looking to roll back one of President Trump’s signature domestic goals: building a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico.
Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state said Congress’s inherent power of the purse can reverse the border wall project, which Trump touts regularly at his rallies in his reelection bid. Smith said he hopes Republican House colleagues join him in returning to the Department of Defense $3.8 billion that has been redirected from defense modernization to the president’s border wall.
“It’s going to look like us trying to claw back that money,” Smith told reporters.
The Trump administration, Smith said, “robbed the bank, and they are now running away with the money. We need to stop them before they get too far.”
The $3.8 billion was taken from planned procurements in the fiscal 2020 budget, including slashing a $650 million Navy amphibious assault ship, a $261 million fast transport ship, and four Air Force C-130 cargo planes for $365 million. An additional $1.3 billion in National Guard and reserve equipment was also cut.
“I think you can absolutely pass a bill that says we appropriated this money for these purposes in the FY20 bill. You’ve taken it out of all these purchases and put it here. Put it back,” Smith said.
The top Armed Services Republican, Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas, at a Feb. 26 hearing, scolded Defense Secretary Mark Esper and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley for overriding Congress’s appropriations authority.
“We made a different judgment call than the administration’s budget request,” Thornberry said at the hearing. “I support walls, but I am deeply concerned about where we’re headed with the constitutional issue about Congress’s role in national defense and whether that is being overridden.”
The comments were particularly notable coming from Thornberry, a former Armed Services Committee chairman and usually a Trump administration ally.
“What the administration does is say, ‘We don’t care what has been authorized and appropriated. We’re going to do what we darn well want.’”
