Trump’s plan to strip planes, ships, and vehicles from Pentagon budget to fund border wall draws bipartisan howls of protest from Congress

ASKING NEITHER FORGIVENESS NOR PERMISSION: In an audacious challenge to legislative branch’s power of the purse, the Trump administration has notified Congress it intends to take $3.8 billion from major weapons programs, warfighting funds, and the National Guard to pay for construction of hundreds of miles of additional border wall before the November election.

The reprogramming action sent to Capitol Hill yesterday cites the urgent need to deter drug smuggling across the southern border — not stopping illegal immigration — as an “unforeseen military requirement,” which it argues is “necessary...