Taxpayers Paid More Than $1 Million for Barrier Erected Around White House Amid Protests
The wall that went up around the White House amid widespread protests this summer cost taxpayers more than $1 million in rental fees, according to federal spending data.
At the end of June, as protests over the death of George Floyd raged, the National Park Service (NPS), along with the Secret Service, erected “anti-scale fencing” along the perimeter of the White House. Four separate contracts—one for almost $400,000, another for $360,000, a third for $225,000, and the other for $161,000— brought the fencing initiative to almost $1.1 million.
The fencing was widely seen as a reaction to the protests, which broke out after George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, died at the hands of Minneapolis cops.