General Discussion

TheBlackAdder

(28,179 posts) Fri Apr 10, 2020, 03:43 PM Apr 2020

REVEALED: White House pushed FEMA to give its biggest coronavirus contract to company that never bid

Last month, as a deadly new virus swept over the globe, one Canadian defense contractor predicted on an earnings call that it would lead to a big business opportunity in the U.S. Thanks to the White House, that bet paid off just a few weeks later in a $96 million no-bid deal.

In an unusual move, even in times of disaster, the White House stepped into the federal purchasing process, ordering the Federal Emergency Management Agency to award a contract to AirBoss of America. The Trump administration has rushed through hundreds of deals to address the pandemic without the usual oversight, more than $760 million reported as of this week, but the AirBoss transaction is the single largest no-bid purchase, a ProPublica analysis of federal purchasing data found.

While FEMA placed the order, it was directed to do so by the White House, ProPublica found.
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But the AirBoss deal was the first — and largest — where contract officers explicitly noted that the White House ordered the deal, ProPublica found. FEMA reported executing a second no-bid contract on the White House’s orders on Tuesday for N95 respirators, the commonly used masks that have become scarce. That deal, with Texas-based Prestige Ameritech, was worth about $9.5 million.
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https://www.rawstory.com/2020/04/revealed-white-house-pushed-fema-to-give-its-biggest-coronavirus-contract-to-a-company-that-never-had-to-bid/

Fucking crooks!

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