Almost precisely a month after President Donald Trump stated he could take $3.6 billion from army production tasks to pay for the border wall, Congress is sooner or later gaining knowledge of which production tasks may get defunded. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan promised to offer the Senate Armed Services Committee with a complete list of construction tasks prone to being defunded to pay for the wall after numerous lawmakers pressed him on the issue, which include Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) “I would love that list these days, Mr. Secretary,” Reed, the ranking Democrat at the committee, advised Shanahan. “Sure,” Shanahan responded. The Pentagon continues to be waiting to hear from Homeland Security Department Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on how plenty military investment might be wished for the border wall, said David L. Norquist, who is acting the obligations of the Deputy Secretary of Defense. The military production initiatives that could be cancelled to pay for the wall had been funded within the financial 2019 price range but have not yet been presented contracts, Norquist advised Sen. Angus King (I-Maine). Trump announced on Feb. 15 that he became declaring a country wide emergency that allowed him to take $three.6 billion from army production tasks and another $2.5 billion from counter narcotics funding to pay for the border wall. The president claimed that the $6.1 billion in defense spending that he became diverting to the wall become now not in the beginning supposed to fund whatever that sounded “too essential to me.” The most contentious moments from Thursday’s hearing came whilst Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) lambasted Shanahan for no longer supplying the list of at chance construction tasks to Congress in advance. Kaine noted that the records about navy construction tasks that might be defunded is “highly relevant” to senators who are slated to vote later Thursday on a decision to stop the president’s national emergency statement. “I were given to inform you: I feel absolutely sand-bagged,” Kaine stated.
“The service secretaries have been willing to percentage the list in their unobligated MILCON projects. So you’re going to ship it to us today after the vote on the emergency assertion?” “Members of the Senate are entitled to know from in which these MILCON monies could be pulled,” he endured. “Your provider secretaries and chiefs have had those lists and whilst we have asked them to send them to the committee, they stated: ‘We can not with out the permission of the SECDEF [defense secretary].’ So have been they best to be had in the last half hour?” Shanahan attempted to guarantee Kaine that the Pentagon changed into now not withholding any statistics from lawmakers approximately the affected production projects. “Throughout this procedure of the emergency statement – and I just have to mention, this is not something we do every day – from the very start, we’ve worked to be a hundred percent transparent with Congress.” But Kaine endured to berate Shanahan until the senator ran out of time.
