Trump administration poised to tap military construction funds to build wall

The Trump administration is preparing to take money from military construction funds more than six months after first promising to do so in order to build sections of the wall along the US-Mexico border, according to multiple administration and defense officials... Though it's unclear which military construction would be put on hold...

White House officials have held talks in the last weeks to begin planning for the move, two administration officials said...

The use of these additional military construction funds could invite a new legal challenge. Administration officials said the action was in the works but that it was unclear when the Pentagon would officially begin shifting the funds.

“I voted for trump and i am critique iff his inaction on bringing political criminals to justice and the wall effort to date.”

Our two-tier justice system did not start with President Trump and he cannot control who gets prosecuted. It is unrealistic to expect one man to change a corrupt system overnight.

There was a lot of talk last year about how in case of an impeachment, there wouldn’t be enough Senate votes to convict. Well, I was never so sure about that, so I could understand why the president wants to go out of his way to be extra careful, including deferring to some judges when he didn’t have to.

On the wall effort, funded or not, a lot of initial planning and preparations are required, these are the things one can’t see. What you think is a delay may not be much of a delay after all. Now that new wall segments are going up in earnest, why obsess about the initial delay and allow it to detract from the joy of seeing the wall progressing?!

All the ‘could have’, ‘should have’ certainly don’t make for a pleasant place to be, some different perspectives may help:

- Have you tried to imagine all the pushback and future noncooperation from the power brokers in his own party if the President had tried to forcefully push through an emergency declaration right out of the gate?

- Even you could not positively say you came up with your ‘funding plan’ back in Jan 2017, but you keep pounding the President with the same cudgel after the fact, when anyone can be a genius looking in the rearview mirror, even though such plan could be disastrous.

- The president cannot tell the AG whom to indict, that is up to the discretion of the AG; though I agree a lot more should have been done to clean house and drain the swamp.

- Building a wall that spans several states by the Federal Government is far more complex than managing a construction project in a private company; not to mention in many ways, a CEO has more direct control over his business than a president does over the country (wall).

- We can do our best to plan, but not every contingency can be planned for (such as the level of obstruction from the left), let alone anomalies like a coup and a witch-hunt. The negative impact of these on the President’s ability to carry out his duties is real whether you want to acknowledge it or not.

Apparently you once supported the President but not anymore. That is fine since people should be able to feel free to support whomever they wish.

Meanwhile you keep repeating the same arguments over and over again even after they have been shown to be not based on reality. I have no desire to go around in circles, so long.

don’t have to imagine, I have experience You don’t hire an ag without talking to him. Here senator this is the comey report and file look it over. Could we move to indict criminal hillary. No? Next candidate.

It was not a funding plan I “suggested”. it is what he did now. he asked congress and declared an emergency and moved funds. all i was saying was he should have done it the day after the inauguration. Same funding scheme (plan)

I can’t believe all the duck and cover justifying going on here for something so simple he for some reason wouldn’t do when he ginned up the crowd for 18 months.

He has an F - on equal justice and he has a F on the wall so far.

Thanks! That was great, and I had missed it.

Loads of great info from authoritative sources (my speculation is bracketed below, like this comment).

Catch and release ends next week!

Only four attempts to breach the new bollards have been made - all failed. (The old Secondary Barrier (which was the tougher one of the two), was routinely breached (cut through) about two to three times a day.)

What used to be 300-500 apprehensions per day in San Diego City, has already fallen to 30-50 per day - and those arrests are only in places where the secondary is not yet complete. It is due to complete in January.

After that, illegal traffic in the sector will be going around the wall, rather than over or through it - door closed.

(On 3 Sep, SecDef announced that Military Construction money is going to be used to further extend the San Diego Primary and Secondary barriers about three miles further East, up over Otay Mountain, where no barrier existed before, to close the gap to the next run of pre-existing bollards. The cartels that fought to control San Diego traffic, like the Sinaloa Cartel, are going to lose their whole business there.)

Now the official count is 66 miles complete. 251 more miles in various stages of construction at 17 sites and contracts for 163 miles (262 kilometers) planned in the next 90 days

Currently, 270 panels are installed per day - that would be 2.835 miles per week, based on 7 days a week; or a touch over 2 miles per week based on 5 days per week.

Although not definitive, LTG Semonite alluded to a coming large increase in the number of crews that will be working simultaneously. Although not a precise correlation, he spoke of 35 jobs, and that some contractors would use multiple crews on particular jobs. (In my estimation, it would therefore be possible that the pace of construction might peak toward two miles per day at some point, and that a mile per day will be common next year.)

Also new and significant, the President spoke about a pause to re-assess barrier needs somewhere around 400-500 miles of wall - see how actual traffic shifts shape up (e.g. some people had estimated that Laredo might get more diverted traffic, but Del Rio saw a surprising surge).

(There was an implication that possibly 450-550 miles of this kind of barrier, might end up being all that is needed. The comprehensive plan called for 1,100 miles of barrier, but in places with double barrier, that would be half as many linear miles. So far, San Diego, Tecate, Calexico, Andrade and the Goldwater Test Range (31 miles just there) are already designated for double barrier construction.)

(The President might just be floating a new position during the Congressional debate over next year’s funding - which is likely to extend into the next fiscal year with continuing resolution funding for a few months. So it might also signal that he he is preparing an escape position, if no more funding comes through. But my take is that it is just objective good management to aim before shooting, and adjust fire as the enemy moves.)

(It is also possible that the re-assessment might just re-order the priority list for barrier construction, and not so much the total requirement.)

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