Chris Lange, FISM News
The Department of Homeland Security, tasked with protecting Americans from foreign enemies, has spent nearly $500,000 of taxpayers’ funds so far to erect state-of-the-art fencing around President Joe Biden’s vacation home in Delaware.
DHS initially paid Delaware-based Turnstone Holdings LLC $456,548 to purchase and install a barrier around Biden’s Rehoboth Beach home in September 2021, according to USAspending.gov, an online database tracking federal spending.
The site also shows that two months later, another $6,844 was added to the project for the installation of gravel pads and crane rentals. Another $26,933 was awarded to Turnstone in June for “additional work” on the fence, bringing the total to $490,324.
DHS is listed as the main awarding office for the contracts, with the Secret Service listed as the subagency, according to the site.
Republicans were quick to point out the hypocrisy of the president’s refusal to construct a wall at the southern border to protect American citizens while simultaneously erecting a barrier around his “Summer White House” on the taxpayers’ dime.
“So walls work at Joe Biden‘s beach house but not the Southern border?” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asked rhetorically in a tweet.
Democrats:
Build walls around their homes for protection, but won’t build one at the southern border to protect you.
Hire private security guards, but take away your guns.
Say they want to “tax the rich,” then raise taxes on middle class families.
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) August 22, 2022
RNC Research teased: “Joe Biden is building the wall…around his luxury beach home.”
A Secret Service spokesperson declined to comment on “the means, methods, or resources used to conduct our protective operations,” according to a New York Post report.
Construction on Biden’s beach house barrier began last September and was expected to be completed by the end of 2021. Unspecified delays have pushed the date back to June of next year.
Shortly after taking office, President Biden halted the construction of a security wall along the southern border which began under the Trump administration. FISM reported in October that border security contractors were being paid $5 million to sit idle while “stacks and stacks” of materials intended for use in the wall’s construction lay unused and abandoned.
Migrant encounters at the southern border have surpassed 2 million already in FY 2022, according to an Aug. 17 Fox News report.