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President-elect Donald Trump intends to stop the Biden administration from selling unused border wall materials just weeks ahead of his return to the White House.
Trump’s nominee for solicitor general, John Sauer, wrote the amicus brief and filed it in a Texas court currently hearing the cases brought by Texas and Missouri against the Biden administration for its selling of the materials.
Trump’s brief calls on the federal judge overseeing the cases to “immediately stop any ongoing sale of border-barrier materials” until the completion of the investigation into Biden’s conduct related to the border wall.
Sauer wrote in the brief, “The outgoing Biden Administration’s reported ‘fire sales’ of border-wall materials to private parties raise grave concerns about the legality of the Defendants’ conduct and their compliance with this Court’s permanent injunction in this case.”
The brief compelled the court to “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.”
According to a report from The Daily Wire, border wall material had been transported by private contractors to an auction site, where the starting bid for whole segments was just $5.
Earlier this month during a press conference, Trump said, “The administration is trying to sell it for five cents on the dollar knowing that we’re getting ready to put it up.” He called the move “almost a criminal act,” and noted that it would cost “double what it cost years ago” to purchase new materials. During the briefing, he called on Biden to “please stop selling the wall.”
Trump’s top spokesman Steven Cheung said of the brief, “Any attempt by Biden officials to obstruct President Trump’s plan to build the Border Wall is unlawful, unconstitutional, and possibly criminal, as our brief argues.” He added that the Biden administration had “an egregious history of violating the law, especially in its catastrophic open-border policy, so the courts should review their actions here with particular skepticism.”
The brief argues that Trump’s intention to finish building the border wall was “the clear and emphatic policy of the incoming Trump administration.”
