President Donald Trump addressed the media Thursday and threatened to declare the proposed border wall a national emergency if Democrats don’t agree to help fund it.
How can he do that? Trump seems to have a clever plan up his sleeve that no one saw coming — and it won’t cost American taxpayers a thing.
“I have the absolute right to declare a national emergency,” the president told reporters just before taking off for his Thursday border visit. “I haven’t done it yet. I may do it. If this doesn’t work out I may almost say definitely.”
The president has been asking for $5.7 billion to fund the border wall, which Democrats have refused to give. But A little-known Department of Defense (DoD) fund may allow him to access ALL the money he needs for southern border security (with plenty to spare).
Just when Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) thought there was no possibility of a wall without their help, the president is outwitting them before their very own eyes.
Here’s how experts say Trump can pull this plan off.
In a recent fiscal year report (2018) by the DoD, a balance of $27.7 billion in expired funding from the Pentagon was returned to the U.S. Treasury between the years 2013-2018. That means an average of $5 billion in national defense funds has been returned to the treasury annually over the past five years — and they’re still available for Trump to access.
All federal government funds have an expiration date. But according to the Interagency Working Group, a arbitration group for the federal government, if funds go without being attributed to a specific cause for more than three years they expire.
At that point, a five-year waiting period occurs when the funding remains in limbo.
In other words, the Pentagon has $27.7 billion in expired funding that it hasn’t spent — and that’s sitting in the bank waiting for a national emergency.
As commander-in-chief, Trump may be able to take full advantage of unused national defense dollars without touching the Defense budget or increasing the deficit — something not even his top aides saw coming!
Watch him address the media below:
The Associated Press contributed to this article.