Congress Is Investigating Contracts Tied To Mask And PPE Shortages

[Budi]

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/15/891122225/congress-is-investigating-contracts-tied-to-mask-and-ppe-shortages



Congressional investigators are launching an inquiry into a handful of companies that landed government contracts related to COVID-19, calling the deals "suspicious" because the companies lacked experience and, in some cases, had political connections to the Trump administration.

In a letter obtained by NPR, the chairman of the bipartisan Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, Rep. James E. Clyburn, D-S.C., asked a roster of administration officials to account for how and why they selected particular companies to provide personal protective equipment, or PPE. Many of the contracts were made without competition at the height of the coronavirus crisis.
Seven letters also went out to individual companies asking for information related to those contracts.

"The Administration awarded contracts to inexperienced suppliers," Clyburn wrote in a letter addressed to the heads of the Departments of Health and Human Services, Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs. "More than 445 companies had no prior experience in the federal marketplace before receiving awards related to the pandemic response. Many of the companies awarded contracts ... registered to do business with the government for the first time this year, some just days before successfully winning a contract."

SNIP
The committee's letter, which was not signed by Republicans on the bipartisan panel, asked the secretaries to provide complete contract files, solicitations, contracts, task orders, and email traffic from seven companies by July 28.
Some of the companies they targeted have been in the news before including Zach Fuentes LLC, which is led by President Trump's former deputy chief of staff, Zachary Fuentes. The company was awarded a $3 million federal contract ...

More on companies' abuse of contracts at link..

[mr_lebowski]

1. GOOD! Now get in front of cameras at every opportunity and shout about this corruption! (nt)

[SWBTATTReg]

4. Exactly. This corruption needs to be shouted out constantly and revealed everywhere it...

occurs. The government under rump doesn't seem to allow bidding by free market / and other companies that may wish to participate in this procurement process ... I never heard of any bidding process(es) allowed, other than rump's son in law doing his thing in allowing this seemingly no bid contracts.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were kickbacks of some sort being paid or offered in this whole mess and we're still experiencing a dearth of PPE after it has been several months at least, since demand for this equipment has been ID'ed...the companies awarded thus far have been unable to meet demand, probably because they're not experienced or capable of gearing up to produce the numbers needed. Obviously something is going on. Kind of like rump pushing for his cure all for the CV still, despite the 'cure all' being proven that it's ineffective.

[Grasswire2]

2. and that Whitefish MT tiny company that botched Puerto Rico..

...and had a no-bid contract for power grid repair there has just gotten a $4m no-bid for making PPE.

True.

[Budi]

3. And Fischer Industries border wall contract, who had no experience builing such a wall.

But dang if they didn't all donate to Trump campaig!!

[mr_lebowski]

5. USAG Kamala Harris is gonna have a LONG list of tasks come January (nt)