THE PRESIDENT THINKS HE CAN USE THE “PARDON POWER” AT WILL

…Replacement section of the border fence being built

There has not been one mile of new border wall, only the replacement of older border fence

Our ignorant president actually thinks he’s a dictator, not the US president.  He actually told the personnel working at the southern border that, “If you have to break the law to get the land or to build the wall, go ahead and break the law.  If you do, I will pardon you.”

Of course, the White House had to later say that the president was “just kidding about the pardon” comment.

The “power of the pardon” was one of the most difficult issues for the nation’s founding fathers to deal with in the writing of the US Constitution.  It was because of the founders concern of what this president is doing today that caused so much discussion.

To put it the way it was stated in the Washington Post: “President Trump is so eager to complete hundreds of miles of border fence ahead of the 2020 presidential election that he has directed aides to fast-track billions of dollars’ worth of construction contracts, aggressively seize private land and disregard environmental rules, according to current and former officials involved with the project.”

Trump is really starting to lose it.  He continues to lie about how many miles of new fence has been built.  In fact, there has been not one mile of new border fence.  All the US Army Corps of Engineers has completed is just about 60 miles of “replacement” barrier.  This is during the first 2½ years of Trump’s presidency, and all of it is in areas that previously had some kind of border infrastructure.

This is just one of Trump’s many promises that he is failing to fulfill.  In fact, the president told senior aides that a failure to deliver on his signature promise of his 2016 campaign would be a letdown to his supporters and an embarrassing defeat.  With the election only 14 months away, and hundreds of miles of fencing plans still only in blueprint form, Trump continues to hold regular White House meetings for progress updates and to hasten the pace.

When White House aides have suggested that some of Trump’s orders are “illegal or unworkable”, Trump still just says he would pardon the officials if they would just go ahead. Trump has waved off worries about contracting procedures and the use of eminent domain, saying to just, “take the land.”  (Trump tried taking away land for a parking lot for his Atlantic City Casino.  The land was owned by an elderly woman and he also failed back then.)

“Don’t worry, I’ll pardon you,” he has told those officials in meetings about the wall.

“He said people expected him to build a wall, and it had to be done by the election,” one former official said.

Asked for comment, the White House official, who as usual, spoke on the condition of anonymity, said “Trump is joking when he makes such statements about pardons.”

Deputy White House press secretary Hogan Gidley said Tuesday that the president is protecting the country with the addition of new border barriers.  “Donald Trump promised to secure our border with sane, rational immigration policies to make American communities safer, and that’s happening everywhere the wall is being built,” Gidley said.

He called internal criticisms of the president “just more fabrications by people who hate the fact the status quo, that has crippled this country for decades, is finally changing as President Trump is moving quicker than anyone in history to build the wall, secure the border and enact the very immigration policies the American people voted for.”

“President Trump is fighting aggressively for the American people where other leaders in the past have rolled over, sold out, and done absolutely nothing,” he said.

The fact checkers have said that Mr. Gridley often offers as many false statements as does the president, and that’s really saying something.

As the 2020 election nears, the lack of a border wall is said to be increasingly urgent concerns to the president.

The Defense Secretary Mark Esper is expected to approve a White House  (Trump) request to divert $3.6 billion in Pentagon funds to the border wall project in coming weeks.  This replaces the money that Trump sought after lawmakers refused to allocate $5 billion for the wall. These funds will be pulled from Defense Department projects in 26 US states.  And once again, this is according to administration officials who only spoke on the condition of anonymity.

There are a number of sites where materials are positioned near the US border for construction that will replace old border fencing.  Many sections of the border fence are also being painted black.  President Trump wants all new border barriers to be painted black, because in the Summer, this makes the fence too hot for anyone to try climbing the fence.  However, since most of the illegal fence crossing attempts happen at night, painting them black is kind of a moot point.  But, the US Army Corps of Engineers is instructing contractors to apply black paint or a black coating to all new or completed barrier fencing.

Trump had conceded in an immigration meeting with lawmakers that a wall or barrier is not the most effective mechanism to curb illegal immigration.  He also recognized it would accomplish less than would a major expansion of US enforcement powers and deportation authority.  But because his supporters want a wall, he has to deliver it.  Trump continually talks about the loud cheers the wall brings at his rallies, and he knows how much he has to please his base.

But looking back, the former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly would often tell administration officials to disregard the president’s demands.  That was if Kelly did not think the demands were feasible or legally sound.

The companies building the fencing and access roads have been taking heavy earth-moving equipment into environmentally sensitive border areas next to US national parks and wildlife preserves.  However, the administration has waived safeguards and impact studies, citing national security concerns.

“They don’t care how much money is spent, whether landowners’ rights are violated, whether the environment is damaged, the law, the regs or even prudent business practices,” a senior official said.  US Customs and Border Protection has suggested no longer writing risk-assessment memos “related to the fact that we don’t have real estate rights and how this will impact construction,” the official said.

While Trump has insisted that the barriers be painted, the cost of painting them will then reduce the length of the fence the government will be able to build.  According to the internal analysis, painting or coating 175 miles of barriers “will add between $70 million and $133 million in cost,” trimming the amount of fencing the Army Corps will be able to install by four to seven miles.

In June, teams of US soldiers painted a one-mile section of fence in Calif.  The cost was $1 million. The coating, known as “matte black” or “flat black,” absorbs heat, making the fence too hot to the touch, and more slippery.  Therefore, difficult to climb during the day.

At Trump’s behest, the Army Corps is also instructing contractors to remove from the upper part of the fence the smooth metal plates that are used to thwart climbers. The president considered that design feature "unsightly".  So, apparently the president wants it to look good, even if it is less capable of doing the job.

A black section of the border fence on the right, the old rust color on the left

So, now, the contractors have been asked to cut the tips of the steel bollards to a sharpened point. Trump told aides this spring he thought the barrier should be spiked to instill a fear of personal injury.  (But this is just one more extra cost.)  This change will also reduce the overall length of the barrier by another two to three miles.

Several administration officials who confirmed the White House’s urgency for the border wall said they expect to be able to deliver on Trump’s demands because the actual construction of the barriers is typically the last step in the process.

“There is a long lead time to acquiring land, getting permits and identifying funding,” the official said. “I think you will see a dramatic increase in wall construction next year because all of the work over the past two years has primed the pump.”

This all sounds pretty good.  But I come from a family where my construction foreman father worked at a number of giant, federally funded projects.  The bureaucracy of the feds will always offer a, “three steps forward, two steps back” approach to completing those federal projects.  

In addition, there are already a number of law suits from private land owners that do not want a border wall going through their property.  And that doesn’t include those environmental areas that also have a number of organizations such as the ACLU, the Sierra Club and the Nature Conservancy that are getting involved for stopping or slowing the “taking over of the land”.

Copyright G. Ater 2019