Money for Trump border wall to come out of crucial Kitsap naval project

President Trump’s aspirations for building a wall along the southern border of the U.S. will soon be felt in Washington, after reports that funding for the project will be taken from a crucial military asset from a Kitsap naval base.

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Because funding for the wall wasn’t approved by Congress, the Trump administration instead took the money from 127 military construction projects through an executive order. One such project is an $80 million project to build a pier at Naval Base Kitsap, in support of a unit that protects ballistic submarines and their crews moving in and out of the area.

The project was previously identified by the navy as a priority by the U.S. Department of Defense, funded with bipartisan support by Congress, and initially getting rubber-stamped by President Trump.

“It’s a project that was identified as a being in our national security interests,” said Congressman Derek Kilmer, who represents the Congressional district Naval Base Kitsap resides in.

“I think there’s real concern about the impact that it can have both on our national security and to our men and women in uniform — we deserve better than this,” he added.

Those concerns had Kilmer, and Washington Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell issuing a joint statement on Wednesday, labeling the move to redirect funding away from the Naval Base Kitsap project as both unnecessary and dangerous.

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“It is deeply disturbing to see the administration unilaterally raid funds from these vital projects in Washington and across the country to fund an ineffective, completely unnecessary border wall,” the joint statement read.

While there was a hope that Congress could potentially back-fill funding for Naval Base Kitsap’s pier project, that’s also not likely to happen according to Kilmer.

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