As the Pentagon faces down a pandemic, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced a $569 Million no-bid contract to a federal contracting firm to build sections of the Trump border wall at an above-market rate.
BFBC, a firm affiliated with Barnard Construction, is a Bozeman, Montana based firm with a history of hundreds of thousands of dollars gifted to Republican politicians. They have been awarded over $1Billion in contracts to build sections of the border wall so far.
While the Trump administration pays contractors on average around $20 million per mile of wall, BFBC is receiving $33 million per mile for the latest contract.
Between all its contracting awards, amounting to $1 billion for 33 miles of the wall, the firm has received $27 million per mile on average — still far above the Trump administration’s average for contractors, and a figure that alarmed independent watchdogs.
Barnard Construction founders have personally contributed to Trump’s re-election campaign, while other executives and employees have contributed to other Republicans, such as Senators Martha McSally of Arizona, Thom Tillis of Arizona, and Cory Gardner of Colorado, various Montana Republicans, in addition to several construction-related trade industry groups.
On Thursday, a group of Democratic lawmakers addressed a letter to Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, and Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, calling on the administration to halt construction of the wall during the pandemic.
“Money that should be invested in healthcare, small businesses, and fighting the spread of COVID-19 is instead being used to build an ineffective and wasteful border wall that does not solve our immigration crisis or protect our homeland… At this juncture, the priority of the United States must be to stop the spread of COVID-19. The continuation of wall construction compromises those efforts.”
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