No pandemic is going to stop the Trump administration from pouring billions of dollars into building a needless border wall, apparently. And once you’re blowing through money at the rate of $20 million per mile, why not up it to $30 million per mile and send that money to a construction company owned by big Republican donors?
One construction firm, BFBC, just got $569 million in contract modifications from the Army for building an extremely specific 17.17 miles of wall in two California locations. It’s not BFBC’s first such contract, either. The company has now gotten over $1 billion for 37 miles of wall, working out to an average of $27 million per mile.
The new $569 million no-bid contract came about because, the Army says, BFBC was “mobilized and working… in close proximity” to where the new 17.17 miles of wall will be.
Timothy Barnard, the owner of BFBC’s parent firm, Barnard Construction, joined his wife in giving a maximum $5,600 contribution to Donald Trump’s reelection campaign in 2019, the Daily Beast reports. Over the past four years, they’ve given more than $50,000 to the Montana Republican State Central Committee. Barnard and other top executives have also given substantial amounts to specific Montana Republican candidates, and Barnard has given money out of state to Sens. Martha McSally, John Cornyn, Cory Gardner, and Thom Tillis.
There’s a pandemic going on, but the wall must keep going up. There aren’t enough masks and gowns and ventilators and millions of people are newly unemployed and struggling to stay afloat, but $33 million per mile of pointless wall is just something the Trump administration is going to keep doing, no matter what.
