Senate Democratic Leaders Call Out Trump Administration for National Security Risks of Diverting Anti-Taliban Funds to Border Wall

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Vice Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee; Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senate Democratic Leader; Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Vice Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee; Jack Reed (D-RI), Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee; and Brian Schatz (D-HI), Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction-VA; today called out the Trump Administration for diverting congressionally-approved funds intended to combat Taliban drug production and trafficking operations to pay for President Donald Trump’s ill-conceived border wall, which is at growing risk of cost overruns. Short-changing programs to stop Afghanistan opium production makes it easier for the Taliban to operate and finance their global terror operations through the illicit drug trade and undermines the security of Americans at home and abroad, as well as the safety of our troops doing battle in the field.

Last week, the Senate learned that the Department of Defense (DoD) engaged in an unprecedented funding maneuver, in which certain costs for support of the Afghan security forces’ counternarcotics efforts were quietly changed to another appropriation. This resulted in $129 million of the congressionally-approved counternarcotics funding not being spent as originally described or intended. In turn, these funds were shifted, without prior notice to the congressional defense committees, to pay for increased costs for President Trump’s border wall. This action brings the total military funding diverted from the troops and their families for the ineffective border wall to $6.2 billion.

“At the end of the day, the Department was faced with a simple choice: either additional funds be used for their intended purpose, to accelerate our military’s efforts to combat heroin production in Afghanistan; or divert these funds to pay for cost increases of a border wall project that does not have the support of the American people. We believe that the wrong decision was made,” the Senators wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Mark Esper. “We strongly urge you to reconsider this wall funding strategy, and stop the diversion of funds for important counternarcotics programs and war-related spending to an ill-conceived wall project that is at growing risk of cost overruns.”

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