What A Steel: Biden Scrambles To Sell Off Trump's Uninstalled Border Wall Before 'Finish It Act' Passes
Looking for a good deal on steel fencing material that could otherwise help maintain America's border (and therefore national) security? Look no further!
The Biden administration has been hawking sections of Donald Trump's border wall on a government military surplus website called GovPlanet - where they've auctioned off 81 batches of square structural tubing and steel columns since April, the Daily Mail reports.
Meanwhile, illegal border crossings (of future Democrats) hit the second-highest level on record in July.
Last Tuesday, the Biden administration sold 700 28 ft. long hollow beams in five separate lots for $212 each, netting $154,200 according to the report.
13 more lots are set to be auctioned on Aug. 23 and Aug. 30.
According to Republicans, up to $300 million of taxpayer-funded wall components have been left to rust since the Biden administration took over.
To address this, the Democrat-led Senate passed a Republican-sponsored bill last month - the "Finish It Act," aimed at forcing the administration to extend the wall. The legislation will force the federal government to use the leftover materials on new wall construction - or hand them over to Texas to use for their own border defense inittiatives.
Instead, the Biden administration is rushing to liquidate the wall leftovers before the GOP-led House can pass a matching version of the bill and make it law, the NY Post reports.
"This sale is a wasteful and ludicrous decision by the Biden administration that only serves as further proof they have no shame," the bill's sponsor, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MI) told the outlet, calling the move "outrageous, behind-the-scenes maneuvering."
"Leaving the border open to terrorists while selling border security materials at a loss is Bidenomics in a nutshell," saic co-sponsor Tom Cotton (R-AR).
"The pennies made from selling the border wall will not be enough to pay the families who suffer from a criminal act committed by someone who crossed our open borders during the Biden administration," said Sen. James Lankford (R-OK)
According to Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the move to sell the materials is "reckless."
"Our borders continue to be overrun by an unprecedented number of illegal immigrants, turning every district into a border district, and compromising our national security," she said.
The GovPlanet auction schedule picked up markedly in May, when Wicker first introduced the Finish It Act, and increased again this month, days after the Senate’s defense bill passed on a bipartisan vote.
A DOD spokesman identified the tubes, held in an outdoor storage lot in Pima County, Ariz., as “excess border wall materials.” -NY Post
According to Lt. Col. Devin T. Robinson, who 'used Defense Department lingo for the process of consigning military surplus items to commercial resellers or the trash heap' (per the Post), "The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers … has already transferred approximately $154 million worth of the roughly $260 million of bollard panels and other materials."
One insider told the Daily Upside that GovPlanet has been instructed to keep quiet about the border-wall connection.
"We are legally not allowed to mention these are the border wall materials, or we could lose our jobs," said the source.
And while the lot listings scrupulously avoid identifying the tubes’ original purpose, viewers of the company’s Instagram page weren’t fooled.
“Good for building a wall,” a user called honest_jake wrote Aug. 3 under a GovPlanet Instagram post touting the sale of “industrial steel tubing” — an entry that was deleted from the social media site Friday.
“Why don’t you put that up instead of selling it,” added Brian Prewitt. “This is why tax payers are just about done paying taxes.” -NY Post
"The federal government needs to be utilizing every tool in the toolbox to secure our border," said Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ), who slammed Biden for his "refusal to act."
"Instead of putting these materials to their intended use, they have been squandered, first collecting dust in the desert and now being auctioned off."
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