Thankyou Law & Crime for making my morning coffee far more enjoyable….
A little-known North Dakota construction firm that was awarded the single largest border wall contract after its CEO effusively praised the president in a slew of conservative media appearances is now defending its product as experts warn the structure is in danger of collapsing, ProPublica and the Texas Tribune reported Thursday.
Several experts interviewed for the report said poor planning and shoddy engineering have left the wall “in danger of falling into the Rio Grande.”
The company, Fisher Sand & Gravel (FSG), in May was won a record-high $1.3 billion government contract to erect a portion of President Donald Trump’s proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall, despite FSG’s prototype being rejected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for lacking in both “quality” and “sophistication.”
As previously reported by Law&Crime, President Trump directly inserted himself into the process for evaluating and awarding government construction contracts, lobbying on behalf of FSG and the firm’s CEO Tommy Fisher. Fisher, who has made a number of Fox News guest appearances, reportedly sold Trump on his company by playing to his impatience with the lack of progress on his signature campaign promise, telling the president he could build the wall faster and cheaper than other contractors bidding on the project. Fisher has since described his design as the “Lamborghini” of walls.
To illustrate the quality and speed at which FSG could construct its proposed wall, the company in January partnered with “We Build the Wall,” a right-wing non-profit group associated with Steve Bannon and Kris Kobach dedicated to privately funding sections of the border wall. This was done to erect a 3-mile section of wall along the Rio Grande river. FSG hoped to sell the completed wall to the Department of Homeland Security.
