GOP senator voted to let Trump take $30 million from 'critical' military project

Trump’s Pentagon is taking $30 million from a military project Arizona Republican Sen. Martha McSally once described as “critical,” and using the money to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, NPR reported Wednesday. Rather than stand up for the military women and men in her own state, McSally defended the Trump administration’s decision.

In 2017, McSally, a member of the House at the time, praised a congressional spending bill that allocated $30 million for Ft. Huachuca, an Army base southeast of Tucson. In a press release at the time, McSally boasted about “funds critical missions at Ft. Huachuca,” adding that “Southern Arizona is home to defense assets that are vital to our national security.”

As far back as 2015, McSally praised Fort Huachuca as “a national security treasure that is home to some of our military’s most important missions.”

Now, McSally has flip-flopped by defending the Trump administration’s decision to swipe the $30 million earmarked for Ft. Huachuca as part of a $3.6 billion theft of military projects to fund a border wall.

In a Wednesday statement, McSally indicated she is supportive of Trump’s pilfering because the Ft. Huachuca project had been delayed due to “ongoing environmental clean-up.”

Her likely 2020 opponent, former astronaut Mark Kelly, blasted McSally’s failure to adequately represent the state.

“Senator McSally has failed her most basic responsibility to put Arizona first, and Fort Huachuca and our national security are suffering the consequences of her political maneuvering,” Kelly said in a statement. “Senator McSally told Arizonans she had protected funding for Arizona military bases, and the fact is that she didn’t keep her word.”

McSally had an opportunity to block Trump from seizing the funds. But when the vote came up in the Senate in March, McSally voted to give Trump the go-ahead, promising Arizonians that she received assurances from the administration that border wall funding would be taken from military families in other states, not Arizona.

Trump has told more than 10,000 lies since he came to office, yet McSally still took his administration at its word.

McSally is “directly responsible” for the loss of funding for Ft. Huachuca, Stewart Boss, DSCC spokesperson, said in a statement. Her “self-serving politics” and “spineless inability to stand up to the White House” resulted in a “failed a basic test of leadership,” he added.

As a result of her failure, a project McSally herself called “critical” is now being defunded to pay for a border wall Trump previously claimed Mexico would pay for.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.