President-elect Trump is asking a court to intervene in alleged sales of border wall materials, accusing the Biden administration of selling off the materials after it was required to do so by Congress.
The new filing from the Trump team relies on reporting from the conservative Daily Wire, which said the Biden administration has been holding a “fire sale” of materials used to build the wall.
But the article’s claims conflict with language from last year’s defense policy bill, which required the administration to distribute or sell any unused border wall material — something it complied with over the summer.
“Today, President Trump has filed an amicus brief in the Southern District of Texas requesting that a highly respected federal judge immediately stop the Biden Administration’s reported ‘fire sale’ of border wall materials at rock-bottom prices and order an investigation. Any attempt by Biden officials to obstruct President Trump’s plan to build the Border Wall is unlawful, unconstitutional, and possibly criminal, as our brief argues,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement.
“President Trump will not be deterred from Building the Wall.”
The filing is the latest in a lengthy court battle as well as congressional jockeying over Trump’s border wall, and how and whether to fund and build it.
Congress last year required the Biden administration to dispose of the unused border wall pieces, something an administration official said came in a provision that was authored by Republicans.
The measure, included in the massive National Defense Authorization Act, allows for the sale or donation of the items to states on the southern border, providing they are used to refurbish existing barriers, not install new ones.
The Department of Defense, however, said further sales can't be blocked because all the excess border wall material has already been distributed.
Customs and Border Protection, Texas and California each requested and received materials months ago, an administration official said. The rest was sold to GovPlanet, which buys and auctions off government surplus.
It is those materials, no longer in government possession, that are being sold off by the company.
Some of the suit rests on arguments that the material held by the military was improperly transferred to the Department of Homeland Security — something attorneys say “admittedly, is not perfectly clear” but could implicate other rulings for how that agency should handle the materials.
“That is material that should be used in future border construction, including under President Trump once he takes office in a month — and the people who purchase the material know that,” the suit claims.
While Trump pushed to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico during his first term in office, only 52 miles of the 458 constructed under his presidency were new structures, rather than replacements.
The stops and starts to the wall's construction also left numerous regions that needed to be remediated.
While Biden sought to end construction of the border wall entirely, that also spurred legal challenges and in some cases funds were used to address partially completed construction while in other cases the administration was compelled to complete some segments of the wall.
The Associated Press contributed.
