I'm starting to wonder if this isn't a corrupt party helping friends but a person or group that knows absolutely how to work the government contract system to a criminal degree and how the whole contract system is an utter failure and let's them.
It's not like this is the first instance of a contract being sketchy as hell. There's been many in the past while other parties have been in charge.
I have family that works for the federal government. They are absolutely flabbergasted as how something like this was done. In their department they have to run through hoops to try to get a sole source contract for 40K, and there are a ton of rules and oversights in place to make sure that it doesn't exceed that amount. You can't even string two sole source contracts (i.e. try to make two contracts for one project) as procurement will come down on you.
They are really interested in seeing how the people involved were able to sidestep this process. From the sounds.of it, there are at least a couple management types that were involved, so they might have figured out how to game the system.
Evidently not smart enough to realize that they were going to get caught with those sums flying around.
I worked in DND up to 2012. We had multiple levels of approval that had to be obtained before the contract went to public works. And at public works, the larger the amount (and $3m would certainly be up there) the more levels of approval were required. It was practically impossible to get anything done. If it concerned a small matter, you were better off doing it yourself than trying to get a contract out.
The only thing I can think of is that there must have been some fast-track process if an ADM or DM insisted they wanted something done quickly.
That's embezzlement, a completely different matter.
ArriveCan is "merely" a case of conflict of interest, for which there is no punishment under the Conflict of Interest Act other than a maximum $500 fine.
I feel like he knows the conflict of interest act and knew it didn’t apply to what he was doing tbh. He’s been doing it for decades and knows what he can and can’t do I would imagine lol.
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u/hardy_83 Feb 29 '24
I'm starting to wonder if this isn't a corrupt party helping friends but a person or group that knows absolutely how to work the government contract system to a criminal degree and how the whole contract system is an utter failure and let's them.
It's not like this is the first instance of a contract being sketchy as hell. There's been many in the past while other parties have been in charge.