While the GOP refuses to support further stimulus funding for states and the unemployed, they still have billions for a wall for a Trump crony.
A North Dakota construction firm called Fisher Sand and Gravel bagged a $1.3 billion deal to build a 42-mile border wall — the largest border wall contract the federal government has ever issued.
The trick—its CEO praised Trump on his favorite cable network, Fox News. Become a Trump crony, get a Trump contract.
Stretching 42 miles along the U.S.-Mexico border south of Tucson, Arizona, the new border contract will cost more than $30 million per mile, The Washington Post reported.
This is more expensive than Trump’s other wall contracts. One of the reasons is simply because the president wanted the barrier to be painted black, adding about $1.2 million per mile to the taxpayers’ bill.
1.3 billion of OUR money is going to one of Tang’s buddies to build that unnecessary wall, yet doctors and nurses don’t have the BASIC protective gear they need to safely care for those stricken with a virus that could kill them all. #MAGA 👌🏻 https://t.co/TeDmcGcZfd
— yvette nicole brown (@YNB) May 20, 2020
According to the report, the president bragged to his aides that the dark color will absorb more heat and scorch the hands of anybody who tries to jump the fence. Engineers, on the other hand, say that the black paint will shoot up maintenance costs in the future.
This isn’t the “MAGA-friendly” firm’s first contract. Trump has previously awarded them $400 million to build the wall however the Defense Department’s inspector general has not greenlighted the contract and is currently investigating it.
After the company’s early bids for building the border wall were passed over, its CEO, Tommy Fisher praised Trump on Fox, essentially pitching his proposal.
He also cultivated links with Trump’s former adviser Stephen K. Bannon, GOP Senate candidate Kris Kobach, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), and other Trump allies, and even donated to their campaigns.
Fisher even built border barriers on private land for We Build the Wall, an activist group whose advisory board consists of Bannon, Kobach, and Blackwater USA founder Erik Prince amongst other key conservatives. ” Its president, Brian Kolfage, frequently taunts and spars with environmental groups and immigrant advocates on social media,” the report says.
According to the Arizona Daily Star, Fisher also paid lobbyists so they can debate the wall with lawmakers.
Now that America is stuck in a #coronavirus pickle, Trump is accelerating his corruption and graft.
The White House broke procurement laws to award over a BILLION dollars to Fisher Industries to build his wall, a monument to racism and lies.https://t.co/pj18yAzr41
— Grant Stern (@grantstern) May 20, 2020
To date, the Trump administration has allotted more than $15 billion for the wall’s construction. Lawmakers have only been able to appropriate one-third of those funds.
The White House says that the rest of the money has been diverted from counternarcotics programs and military projects.
Trump’s definition of “draining the swamp” is awarding billion dollar contracts to donors using misappropriated military funds. https://t.co/OX5PYHHSTH
— Rep. Gwen Moore (@RepGwenMoore) May 19, 2020
