President Donald Trump chalked up a victory in Congress Tuesday on his push for money for a border wall, as the U.S. House failed to muster a two-thirds supermajority needed to override the President's veto of a plan blocking his national emergency declaration, paving the way for the Trump Administration to funnel billions into construction of a wall along the southern border with Mexico.
"The President is well within his legal authority that Congress has provided him," said Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO). "That's the bottom line."
But those arguments fell on deaf ears with Democrats, who accused the President of undermining the Constitution by defying the spending decisions of the Congress.
"We take an oath to the Constitution, not to the President of the United States," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who labeled the national emergency a 'lawless power grab,' as Democrats denounced the President's declaration.
“The president couldn’t get Mexico to pay for his wall,” said Rep. Val Demings (D-FL). “He couldn’t get Congress to pick the pockets of the American people.”
"This is a dangerous precedent," said Rep. Nanette Barragan (D-CA).
"We must send a strong and clear message to the President that we live in a constitutional, representative democracy," said Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR).
But while they had a majority of votes in the House, Democrats were over 40 short of the margin needed to overturn the President's veto.
The final vote was 248-181; 14 Republicans joined 234 Democrats in voting to override President Trump's first veto.
The vote in the House came as top Pentagon officials used a hearing in the U.S. House to defend the first shift of money inside the Pentagon budget to the border wall, as officials notified Congress of $1 billion being moved out of military pay accounts.
"The Army was falling short of its recruiting targets," said the Pentagon's Chief Financial Officer David Norquist at a U.S. House hearing, arguing that unused funding was a logical place to look for extra money for the border wall.
"If there's no purpose, there's not a lot of other uses," Norquist told lawmakers. "And so, it's available" (for the wall).
As the hearing was being conducted, Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, rejected the Trump Administration's request to move the $1 billion in pay accounts over to a border wall.
The Pentagon is simply going to ignore that rejection, and make the funding switch.
At the hearing, Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan joined in defending the funding moves, as he said two other actions are likely:
+ $2.6 billion to be funneled into a drug interdiction fund in the military, with the money then going to the border wall.
+ $3.6 billion in military construction money - with projects still to be identified - would be diverted to the wall funding as well.
In a statement issued after the vote, Speaker Pelosi vowed additional challenges to the President's declaration.
“In six months, the Congress will have another opportunity to put a stop to this President’s wrongdoing,” the Speaker said. “We will continue to review all options to protect our Constitution and our Democracy from the President’s assault.”
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