CBS News 3/3/2018
A tiny Nebraska startup awarded the first border wall construction project under President Trump is the offshoot of a construction firm that was sued repeatedly for failing to pay subcontractors and accused in a 2016 government audit of shady billing practices.
SWF Constructors, which lists just one employee in its Omaha office, won the $11 million federal contract in November as part of a project to replace a little more than 2 miles of a current fence with post-style barriers 30 feet high in Calexico, California.
It's the first wall contract awarded in the Trump administration outside of eight prototypes that were built last year in San Diego. The project represents a sliver of the president's plan that was central to his presidential campaign promise for a wall at the border with Mexico.
It remains unclear why SWF was listed on the bid for the wall contract instead of Edgewood, New York-based Coastal Environmental Group, which online government documents list as its owner.
Thomas Anderson, an Omaha lawyer who initially represented a subcontractor that sued Coastal in 2011, said he wouldn't be surprised if it was an attempt to dodge scrutiny of past legal problems. He says such a practice is relatively common in construction projects.
More:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/border-wall-company-contract-questions/
