CNN has apparently gotten a hold of a draft of an national emergency proclamation that the White House has been preparing, and says they’ve found 7 billion for the wall:
CNN – The White House is preparing a draft proclamation for President Donald Trump to declare a national emergency along the southern border and has identified more than $7 billion in potential funds for his signature border wall should he go that route, according to internal documents reviewed by CNN.
Trump has not ruled out using his authority to declare a national emergency and direct the Defense Department to construct a border wall as Congress and the White House fight over a deal to end the government shutdown. But while Trump’s advisers remain divided on the issue, the White House has been moving forward with alternative plans that would bypass Congress.
“The massive amount of aliens who unlawfully enter the United States each day is a direct threat to the safety and security of our nation and constitutes a national emergency,” a draft of a presidential proclamation reads.
“Now, therefore, I, Donald J. Trump, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C 1601, et seq.), hereby declare that a national emergency exists at the southern border of the United States,” the draft adds.
The draft was updated as recently as last week, a US government official told CNN.
According to options being considered, the administration could pull: $681 million from Treasury forfeiture funds, $3.6 billion in military construction, $3 billion in Pentagon civil works funds, and $200 million in Department of Homeland Security funds, the official said.
Note they point out that Trump’s advisers are still split on going this route. So it doesn’t mean they will, but it does mean that the option is very much on the table, as Trump likes to say.
But if they’ve already gone to this much trouble in preparing it, I expect it’s a very real possibility that Trump may indeed go this route as we’ve all expected. He’s been clear over the last few weeks that if he couldn’t get it done via the shutdown, he’d use his emergency powers to do it.
So, this could mean that we’re gonna see an end to the shutdown pretty soon. The pressure is certainly ramping up.
The only problem I see with a leak like this is it could make Democrats withdraw from the negotiating table, hoping Trump would just go ahead with this plan and then watch it get tied up in the courts.