California Senator Kamala Harris recently claimed the Trump administration is “raiding money" from military pensions to pay for the border wall.
Cap Radio’s PolitiFact reporter Chris Nichols fact-checked that statement by the Democratic presidential candidate.
Harris has gone after Trump on immigration and the wall.
Here she is at an Iowa town hall in January making a pointed comment about how his White House treats the so-called Dreamers.
01Harris: “This administration has decided to vilify them and to trade on them for the sake of this president’s medieval vanity project called a wall.” (:10)
But earlier this month, Harris claimed on social media that the Trump administration is “raiding money” from military pensions to pay for that wall.
The Pentagon does plan to transfer some leftover pay and retirement funds to an account that could then be used for the wall.
But military budget experts like Todd Harrison say the change won’t reduce the pay or pension of any military service members.
03Harrison: The reason there’s extra money in these army accounts is that the army had a recruiting shortfall. So the army was not able to bring in as many soldiers into the service as they had planned. So they budgeted more money than they’re actually going to be able to spend.” (:16)
Harris cited an Associated Press news article. That article failed to say in its headline that it’s leftover money that’s being transferred.
Still, we found that’s no excuse for making a claim that’s so far off-the-mark.
We rated Harris’ statement False.
In Sacramento, I’m Chris Nichols.
