Pelosi hit$ the wall
Appeal to GOPers over lost funding
Liberals and lawyers have launched a full-court press to fight President Trump’s emergency declaration at the southern border.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (DCalif.) shared a list of projects that allegedly stand to lose funding if Trump follows through on vows to divert billions in federal dollars toward construction of a wall, The Hill reported.
Her goal is to win over Republican lawmakers whose districts could lose cash for projects — some 400 items ranging from operations for a middle school in Kentucky to facilities for fighter jets in Alaska, according to the Saturday report.
The budget Congress passed Thursday included nearly $1.4 billion for fences along the US border with Mexico. Trump wants about $8 billion for wall construction, so he’ll tap into $3.6 billion in unallocated military-construction funds, $2.5 billion from a Department of Defense drug program and $600 million in drug-related forfeitures from the Treasury Department, acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney was quoted as saying in Politico.
Democratic leaders in Congress — and some Republican members — have slammed Trump’s dra-
"We have to smoke out as many Republicans as possible by making the case that projects in their back yard are in jeopardy." - Democratic ally of Nancy Pelosi (right)
matic move to invoke emergency powers to build the wall. But Pelosi is apparently trying to appeal to lawmakers’ penchant for pork in her bid to stop the president.
“We have to smoke out as many Republicans as possible by making the case that projects in their back yard are in jeopardy and will likely be raided to help pay for Trump’s ineffective and politically moti- vated wall,” a top Democratic congressional staffer told The Hill.
Meanwhile, the first of a predicted onslaught of lawsuits challenging the national emergency are underway.
Public Citizen, a left-leaning think tank focusing on consumer rights, sued to block Trump’s declaration on several grounds. The group argued there is no emergency at the border and that wall construction threatens the property of three landowners in Austin, Tex. A fourth plaintiff is a Texas nature preserve.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sued Trump’s Justice Department for allegedly failing to answer a Freedom of Information Act request for documents related to the proposed wall.