There’d already been reports that impeached president Donald Trump had since 2018 been privately pushing for a North Dakota company he favored to be given the federal contract to build the border wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for. "We had to explain the rules of federal procurement,” a source told NBC News last year. “You can't just pick a winner.” Rules, schmules. The company eventually got its federal payday. Now, further details from three former administration officials show just how heavily Trump lobbied for his preferred pick, 60 Minutes newly reports.
Humiliate Trump: Sign up with 2020 Victory to make phone calls to voters in battleground states to elect Joe Biden, Kamala Harris & the whole Democratic ticket. All you need is a home computer, a quiet place at home to make calls & a burning desire to kick Donald Trump out of office.
The report says that finding out one day in March 2019 that Fisher Sand and Gravel wasn’t in the running, Trump "exploded into a tirade,” the report said. Completely ignoring advice that the shit he was pulling was highly inappropriate, “pressure continued” against officials, including “a handwritten note from the president, an email from his personal secretary and calls from his son-in-law, Jared Kushner,” 60 Minutes continued. “Fisher Sand and Gravel was awarded the single largest border wall contract, $1.3 billion.”
Adding to this mess, because there’s always more mess when it comes to this administration: since being awarded with massive federal funding, engineering experts have said that some of the private wall that Fisher Sand and Gravel infamously built with funding from the “We Build the Wall” scam that has now resulted in the arrest of former Trump official Steve Bannon is basically on the verge of collapse in the Rio Grande.
Jeremy Schwartz and Perla Trevizo reported for ProPublica and The Texas Tribune that one report found “concrete cracking, construction flaws and what the firm concluded was likely substandard construction material below the fence’s foundation.” On a project not even a year old in completion. A University of Texas at El Paso engineering professor who reviewed that report told Schwartz and Trevizo that “[i]t seems like they are cutting corners everywhere.”
“Company president Tommy Fisher, a frequent guest on Fox News, had called the Rio Grande fence the ‘Lamborghini’ of border walls,” Schwartz and Trevizo wrote. “It’s not a Lamborghini, it’s a $500 used car,” the engineering professor continued. Who’s paying for that lemon? We are!
“Fisher Sand and Gravel has a checkered past,” 60 Minutes continued. “In 2009, the company admitted to tax fraud. They've racked up thousands of environmental and safety violations in six states, and almost $2 million in fines.” It’s the kind of shit that House Committee on Homeland Security Chair Bennie Thompson said could have ruled the company out of any federal consideration. “But they weren't,” he told 60 Minutes. “The president made no bones about his support for Fisher. And—and guess what? Fisher got the contract. It speaks for itself.”
Frank Sharry, executive director immigrant rights advocacy group America’s Voice, said that “Trump’s wall and this scandal captures so much of what’s wrong with his presidency. It’s a stupid idea anchored in white grievance and rank racism,” he said. “He promised that Mexico would pay for the wall when U.S. taxpayers are paying, which, in light of yesterday’s New York Times revelations that Trump doesn’t really pay taxes means he’s not even contributing to this project as a taxpayer. Meanwhile, he continues to lie at his rallies that Mexico is paying for it. They are not. … The border wall epitomizes Trump’s presidency: built on racism, corruption, lies, scandal and incompetence, it’s falling apart before our very eyes.”