The battle over the border wall is heating up as the Biden administration sells off materials, seemingly defying the plans of President-elect Donald Trump, who has asked a federal court for an “immediate stop” to the sales to ensure he can restart building the wall next year.
Mr. Trump’s lawyer, John Sauer, said Biden officials may even be engaged in “a criminal act” if they are selling the materials at cut-rate prices in order to thwart Mr. Trump’s plans.
Republicans on Capitol Hill have also weighed in, demanding the current administration explain the current sales and come clean about past auctions that have dumped wall materials at incredible discounts.
Their fury erupted after a new batch of steel went up for sale on an online auction site earlier this month. Mr. Trump said in his court filing that some of the buyers have turned around and offered to sell the materials back to his incoming administration at a massive markup.
“One of President Trump’s dominant priorities for the next four years — building the border wall — could be unlawfully hampered, delayed, or obstructed by such efforts,” Mr. Sauer told a federal court in Texas.
The wall was the most visible of Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign promises, and thus became a major target for President Biden when he defeated Mr. Trump and took office in 2021.
On his first day, he ordered a halt to construction and has spent the ensuing four years trying to figure out how to avoid building more wall with the money Congress had already allocated. Those efforts included slow-walking construction and spending wall money on other uses such as environmental cleanup.
U.S. District Judge Drew B. Tipton earlier this year ruled that the Biden administration’s efforts were illegal and he directed them to use the money to build barriers.
The plaintiffs in that case — GOP-led states — have asked the judge to step in now and referee the sell-offs, which Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton likened to “acts of sabotage by the outgoing administration.”
Mr. Trump on Friday weighed in with his legal brief, arguing as the incoming president he has a stake now in the outcome.
Republicans have not only called for a halt in the sell-off but are demanding an accounting of how the Defense Department disposed of the materials it’s already cleaned out.
“It is unconscionable that, weeks before President Trump takes office, the Biden administration is auctioning off taxpayer-purchased parts of the border wall — for pennies on the dollar — despite that Americans overwhelmingly support its construction,” said Sen. Bill Hagerty, Tennessee Republican.
Sen. Tom Cotton, Arkansas Republican, has asked the Defense Department to preserve all documents related to sales, and asked for a list of companies that bought the wall materials.
“While I recognize the shameful decision to halt the needed construction of the southwestern border wall was made by President Biden, I have outstanding questions regarding the Department’s role in disposing of the unused material,” he wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Mr. Trump’s transition team is pressing Homeland Security officials to get the latest details on what materials are left over.
Mr. Biden’s administration says it is carrying out a part of the fiscal 2024 defense policy bill, which called for Mr. Austin to come up with a plan to “use, transfer or donate to states on the southern border” any wall materials that had been deemed surplus.
The top priority was to use the materials in other construction at the border, such as to modernize border crossings or projects aimed at stopping illegal immigration.
The law, enacted in late 2023, gave Mr. Austin 75 days to come up with the plan, another 100 days to carry it out and 90 more days to report back on what happened, and Pentagon officials have said they in the middle of those plans.
But Mr. Sauer said in his court filing that the law was intended to prod construction, not a sell-off.
He also said ditching the materials at a massive discount would violate Judge Tipton’s previous rulings.
The border wall as a project was a centerpiece of Mr. Trump’s successful 2016 campaign.
His vow to have Mexico “pay” for the wall didn’t come to pass — at least not in terms of actual cash, though his backers say his hard dealing with Mexico on trade and immigration more than compensated for the actual wall costs U.S. taxpayers footed.
On Mr. Trump’s watch, some 458 miles of new barriers were erected. Of that, 87 miles were built where no previous fence had existed, 176 miles replaced a previous but outdated or broken fence and 195 miles were built where there had been vehicle barriers but no actual fence.
The project was supposed to be a wall “system,” with the barriers accompanied by roads, lighting and sensors to be able to detect unauthorized crossings and help Border Patrol agents to respond.
But the Government Accountability Office said Mr. Trump front-loaded the barriers and shortchanged the other aspects, with only 69 miles of wall fully completed.
“While the wall panels are typically the most costly part of border barrier construction, the full wall system remains incomplete,” the GAO said.
When Mr. Trump left office he had plans — and enough funding from Congress — to build nearly 300 more miles of wall system.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.
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