In an ongoing funding battle, members of the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee have gone on record condemning a move by the Trump Administration to divert some $3.8 billion in Defense Department funds.
By executive order, that money was removed from a number of Defense Department programs and projects across the country to pay for the continued construction of a border wall between the United States and Mexico.
In a letter to Defense Secretary Mark Esper, the Democratic members of the committee charged that the funding transfer will especially negatively impact Army National Guard, Air National Guard and Reserve Components programs.
“The raid on this funding is quite simply an attack on the efforts to ensure our citizen-soldiers are prepared to respond to disasters, both overseas and in nearly every community in all fifty states and four territories,” the letter reads.
According to the publication Roll Call, funding will particularly be subtracted from F-35 fighter jet and V-22 tiltrotor aircraft programs.
The $3.8 billion diversion of Defense Department funds comes on the heels of the more than $11 billion that has been previously identified for building the border wall.
Pentagon officials say the $3.8 billion will be used to build just under 180 miles of fencing. So far, around 122 miles of the wall along a nearly 2,000-mile border has been built.
By Garry Boulard
