President Trump has filed an amicus brief in an attempt to stop the Biden administration from selling off leftover material from his border wall.
The Biden admin has been selling off materials that have lain unused since 2021 using a government-surplus website, at rock-bottom prices. Auctions have been taking place “for some time,” since at least 2023.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has described the sales as “almost a criminal act.”
“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 new brief, filed in the Southern District of Texas, was written in support of legal action being taken by Texas and Missouri to prevent the sales.
It states that “The outgoing Biden Administration’s reported ‘fire sales’ of border-wall materials to private parties raise grave concerns about the legality of Defendants’ conduct and their compliance with this Court’s permanent injunction in this case.”
The brief then asks that the Court “order an immediate stop of all such sales and perform a searching examination of the Government’s conduct—by ordering formal discovery if necessary—to ensure compliance with the Constitution, the law, and the Court’s orders.”
The Biden administration has attempted to defend the sales of border-wall materials by claiming that they are in line with the provisions of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which required the defense secretary to submit a plan to use, transfer or donate all remaining border-wall material purchased with Pentagon money. A plan was submitted in March of this year.
“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,” a defense official told Fox.
“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.”