Trump Asks Supreme Court to Unfreeze Border Wall Money

The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to let it use Pentagon money to build sections of a border wall with Mexico after two lower courts blocked it from doing so while a lawsuit over the money continues.

The Trump administration filed the request with the Supreme Court on Friday. Last week, a divided three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled against the administration. It kept in place a lower court's freeze preventing the government from tapping Defense Department counterdrug money to build high-priority sections of wall in Arizona, California and New Mexico.

At stake is billions of dollars that would allow President Donald Trump to make progress on a major 2016 campaign promise heading into his race for a second term.