President-elect Donald Trump has filed an amicus brief to stop the administration of President Joe Biden from continuing the sale of material used to build the border wall.
The brief was filed on Thursday to support a case brought by Texas and Missouri to “immediately” stop the sale of border wall materials, saying the action is “possibly criminal,” Fox News reported.
“The Court should issue an order directing the Defendants to immediately stop any ongoing sale of border-barrier materials to private parties pending the Court’s review of Defendant’s conduct, and the Court should swiftly conduct a searching examination of the Government’s conduct, by formal discovery if necessary, to examine the Government’s compliance with the law, the Constitution, and the Court’s injunction,” the brief said.
The sales have been going on for months as the administration is selling the materials for pennies on the dollar secretly for months but it was exposed last week in a report from The Daily Wire.
The brief from the president-elect says that the Biden administration is “deliberately selling off border-wall materials at a major financial loss to the Government to obstruct the pro-wall policy of Congress and President Trump, such conduct likely constitutes a criminal act, such as a conspiracy to defraud the United States.”
“At the very least, the reported conduct raises troubling concerns of potentially criminal behavior,” it said.
A Defense official spoke to Fox News and said that the Pentagon has been selling the materials in accordance with the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act and that states like Texas were offered a chance to purchase it before it went to auction.
“Through our reutilization, transfer and donation process, nearly 60% of those materials were transferred to authorized recipients, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the states of Texas and California,” they said. “The remaining 40% was sold to GovPlanet under a competitive sales contract process beginning in June 2024. The material currently being sold through GovPlanet online auctions no longer belongs to the U.S. Government, and DOD has no legal authority to recall the material or stop further resale of material it no longer owns.”
But the president-elect said that he is working with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and others to acquire the materials.
“What they’re doing is really an act, it’s almost a criminal act,” the president-elect said. “They know we’re going to use it, and if we don’t have it, we’re going to have to rebuild it. And it’ll cost double what it cost years ago, and that’s hundreds of millions of dollars because you’re talking about a lot of, a lot of wall.”
The Texas attorney general said that the state is going to court to “prevent any border security materials from being unlawfully sold and to find out the truth about what the federal government may be doing to subvert border wall construction.”
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“President Trump has an overwhelming mandate from the American people to build the wall,” the attorney general said, “and I will do everything in my power to prevent any acts of sabotage by the outgoing administration.”
“The Biden Administration’s latest attempt to block Texas and President-Elect Donald Trump’s efforts to secure the southern border is downright shameful and demonstrates a continued pattern of disregard for the safety of Texas and American families in favor of increasingly disastrous open border policies,” Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham said.
“I made a promise to use every tool at my disposal from the GLO to secure our border and protect Texans,” she said. “That is why I have offered state leaders and President-elect Donald Trump the opportunity to store any wall panels his incoming administration may acquire on state land. I will never give up the fight to secure our porous southern border and protect our sons and daughters from violent, criminal illegal immigrants.”
