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CORRUPTION: Trump Admin Awarding COVID-19 Contracts to Friends & Donors
Even in a time of unprecedented crisis, Trump and his top aides are playing favorites when awarding contracts and allocating resources. Powerful detail on Trump intervention to control supplies and contracts and hand out rewards— circumnavigating traditional contract rules.
Trump and his top aides have played favorites in awarding contracts and allocating scarce resources. Using the unilateral authority of the White House, Trump and his aides have consolidated power in a period of national crisis, picking winners and losers based in part on personal relationships, ideological affinity and partisan loyalty.
Put simply, the fight for survival among businesses related to the COVID-19 fight — and for a slice of the billions of dollars going out the door — is about political influence. There's growing evidence that Trump and his aides are using his authority over both the contracting and allocation processes for political gain.
The federal contracting process is supposed to be devoid of political influence — so much so that there are prohibitions on contractors' making donations or expenditures in connection with federal elections. Typically, big contracts are bid out, and there's significant competition for federal dollars.
But in emergencies, there are workarounds to accelerate the process ....a new system that is neither fair nor transparent — and one that has enabled Trump to consolidate power.
Apparently going on Steve Bannon's podcast helped a medical mask manufacturer get a contract with FEMA.
In early March, Mike Bowen, the executive vice president of the medical mask manufacturer Prestige Ameritech, found the perfect way to drum up some federal business: He went on Steve Bannon's podcast...
A month later, at the explicit request of the White House, Prestige Ameritech had a $9.5 million contract with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It then won another deal with the state of Texas and was given 50 National Guard members, deployed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, to work shifts at its suburban Fort Worth manufacturing facility.
Prestige Ameritech's deal with FEMA is one of only two that NBC News could find in the history of the federal contracting database that says explicitly that a White House ordered it up — "directed by the White House"...
It is beyond outrageous that who gets millions in coronavirus-related contracts, and even who gets life-saving supplies, is dictated by personal and political ties to the White House.
"I've never seen anything directed by the White House like this before," said the source, who insisted on anonymity out of fear of retribution.
"We're essentially f-----," said an official who is leading his state's supply-chain effort.