Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee are demanding that the Trump administration “immediately” prohibit funding the president’s border wall with money allocated to stop Russian aggression in Europe.
The committee sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Monday, The Hill reports.
“This is a blatant misuse of appropriated funds intended to bolster security and support for our European allies,” the lawmakers wrote. “We urge you to respect Congress’ authority and immediately cease the use of these critical funds to prop up President Trump’s failed border wall initiative.”
The letter was written by committee chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., and Rep. Bill Keating, D-Mass., chairman of the panel's subcommittee on Europe, and was co-signed by 17 Democrats on the committee.
The Pentagon told Congress late last month it was moving about $545.5 million to fund 22 stateside projects, which had been delayed because money was reallocated to Trump’s wall on the southern border.
Now, additional border wall money will come from 19 mostly overseas military construction projects, according to the memo.
Ten of the 19 projects are part of the European Deterrence Initiative, a fund created in 2014 to reassure U.S. allies shaken by Russia.
The Pentagon stated the overseas projects "have not been canceled but deferred because the projects will not be awarded until FY 2021 or later.”
The money was moved after Congress didn’t approve the amount Trump requested for his border wall project.
“President Trump’s inability to secure funding for his border wall is not a reasonable justification to circumvent the Congress’ constitutional authority to appropriate funds,” the letter states. “While the president concocts a misleading narrative about a national emergency on the southern border in order to divert funds to the wall, the threat of Russian aggression to the United States and to our allies and partners in Europe is tangible.”
The letter states the reallocation "sends the wrong message to allies and partners and denies funding critical to our forces at a time when relations between the United States and Russia are at an all-time low and when Russia continues to threaten the United States and our allies."
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