Military Times by Andrew Taylor 10/16/2019
Democrats protest transferring $200M in Pentagon counterdrug efforts in Afghanistan to fund border wall President Donald Trump has quietly transferred more than $200 million from Pentagon counterdrug efforts toward building his long-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, drawing protests from Democrats who say he is again abusing his powers.
The move would shift $129 million to wall construction from anti-drug efforts in Afghanistan — the source of perhaps 90 percent of the world’s heroin — along with $90 million freed up by passage of a stopgap funding bill, top Democrats said in a letter to Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.
The Defense 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,†the Democrats wrote.
More:
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2019/10/16/democrats-protest-transferring-200m-in-pentagon-counterdrug-efforts-in-afghanistan-to-fund-border-wall/
