After reports of the Biden administration auctioning off border wall materials surfaced, Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) alongside Republican colleagues sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to urge the Department of Defense (DoD) to reverse course.
As reported by Fox News, the DoD has been scrambling to sell the leftover pieces of border wall materials since the Finish It Act – legislation that would restart construction of the border wall – was introduced in May. It recently passed in the Democrat-controlled Senate as it was included in the annual defense appropriations package, which has caused the Biden administration to scramble to sell more parts.
Sen. Scott and the Republican Senators’ letter calls the DoD’s decision “a brazen attempt to circumvent the Finish It Act,” and therefore, the legislative branch as a whole.
“We are deeply disappointed to learn that rather than using construction materials that were purchased to secure the southwest border for that purpose, the Department of Defense has begun auctioning these materials off for other purposes,” wrote the Senators. “These auctions represent a brazen attempt to circumvent the FINISH IT Act, which was included in both the House and Senate FY2024 National Defense Authorization Act. The FINISH IT Act requires the Department to use these construction materials to secure the southwest border as originally intended, or to transfer them to border states for that purpose.”
Moreover, the Senators demanded that Secretary Austin open an investigation of a key figure in the Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs department. The lawmakers named Assistant Secretary Melissa Dalton and her “failure to provide Congress accurate and timely information about the Department’s plans regarding the use of these border wall construction materials, despite multiple inquiries about the border wall construction materials from both Senate Armed Services Committee members and staff.”
Additionally, they requested that by Sept. 5, a full account of the Department’s “disposal of border wall construction materials thus far.” This includes the selling price of the materials, who bought them, and the intentions of the buyers, as well as the receipts concerning how much the Department has paid for the storage of the border wall materials.
