Engineer with no medical background got $69 million for ventilators, but never delivered anything..

[HipChick]

Link to tweet

On Wednesday, BuzzFeed News documented how a California man received $69 million from the government for ventilators that were never delivered.The short answer: He tweeted at the president.“On March 27, as emergency rooms in New York and across the country began filling with coronavirus patients struggling to breathe, President Donald Trump posted on Twitter to urge Ford and General Motors to ‘START MAKING VENTILATORS, NOW!'” reported Rosalind Adams and Ken Bensinger. “One of the thousands of replies that the tweet attracted struck an equally urgent tone: ‘We can supply ICU Ventilators, invasive and noninvasive. Have someone call me URGENT.'”

Its author was Yaron Oren-Pines, an electrical engineer in Silicon Valley. A specialist in mobile phone technology, he currently has just 75 followers on Twitter and no apparent experience in government contracting or medical devices.But three days later, New York state paid Oren-Pines $69.1 million. The payment was for 1,450 ventilators — at an astonishing $47,656 per ventilator, at least triple the standard retail price of high-end models.

Not a single ventilator ever arrived.

A state official, speaking on background because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the terms of the deal, said New York entered into the contract with Oren-Pines at the direct recommendation of the White House coronavirus task force.

Nearly a month later, New York has terminated the contract, and the state is now trying to recover all of the money it paid the Silicon Valley electrical engineer. Officials refused to say how much the state had been able to claw back. “We are in discussions on a few remaining issues,” said Heather Groll, a spokesperson for the New York Office of General Services, part of the interagency effort to help New York get supplies.


https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosalindadams/after-one-tweet-to-president-trump-this-man-got-69-million

[Grasswire2]

1. How much of a cut did Jared get?

There's a crime syndicate operating out of the White House.

[customerserviceguy]

2. This is a contract

made by New York State. Perhaps Governor Cuomo can do some explaining here, if he's taking advice from Kushner or anybody else connected to the Trump administration.

[HipChick]

6. Referred by the White House

who check nothing..no-one..except that he was a Trump humper..

[Caliman73]

9. That is easy for us to say in hindsight.

When you are hard hit, people are dying, and you are getting little to no help from the Federal Government and something turns up that is being touted as a solution, you either go and risk it, or you pass and questions start up about why you are allowing people to die without trying everything. It is an untenable situation. If there was a real President in office, like President Obama, the Feds would be right there in the trenches procuring supplies and granting them to states at low or no cost. The Governmental Purchasing Rules would be operating and President Obama would have actually used the DPA to make sure we had all the PPE and ventilators we needed.

[malaise]

3. Wasn't there a strange power company contract for Puerto Rico

after that hurricane - it was cancelled after public outcry.

[captain queeg]

4. Yep. Though as I remember it they actually were an electrical contractor

But just a small time outfit with less than a dozen employees and no experience on the kind of work that was needed.

[babylonsister]

5. Goddamit. Criminal. Again. nt

[oasis]

7. Kick to expose.

[ffr]

8. This is why we need oversight.

Republican grifters are everywhere.