Grifting during a pandemic

A former White House aide won a $3 million federal contract to supply respirator masks to Navajo Nation hospitals in New Mexico and Arizona 11 days after he created a company to sell personal protective equipment in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Zach Fuentes, President Donald Trump’s former deputy chief of staff, secured the deal with the Indian Health Service with limited competitive bidding and no prior federal contracting experience.

The IHS told ProPublica it has found that 247,000 of the masks delivered by Fuentes’ company — at a cost of roughly $800,000 — may be unsuitable for medical use. An additional 130,400, worth about $422,000, are not the type specified in the procurement data, the agency said.

[...]

“The IHS Navajo Area Office will determine if these masks will be returned,” the agency said in a statement. The agency said it is verifying Fuentes’ company’s April 8 statement to IHS that all the masks were certified by the Food and Drug Administration, and an FDA spokesperson said the agency cannot verify if the products were certified without the name of the manufacturer.

[...]

IHS told ProPublica that Fuentes’ company reported that the masks were made in China, but the agency did not specify the manufacturer.

[...]

Hospitals in the Navajo Nation, which spans Utah, New Mexico and Arizona, have been desperate for protective supplies as the numbers of coronavirus infections and deaths have grown quickly. As of Friday, the Navajo Nation reported 4,434 COVID-19 cases and 147 deaths, a crisis that has prompted outcries from members of Congress and demands for increased funding.

[...]

Fuentes initiated email contact with officials at IHS, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency said. After the contact, the agency informally solicited prices from a handful of face mask providers and chose Fuentes of the six companies that responded because his firm offered the best price and terms, IHS said.

  ProPublica

How that acutally works, as anybody who ever worked in a procurement department of a government enterprise knows: you get the proposal from the company/person you want to give the contract to, then you solicit however many others you are required to by law, and find - or simply claim - that the one you wanted to give it to had the best offer/the best product/the best whatever.

Fuentes said political connections to the Trump White House played no role in his company’s selection.

Of course not, darling. We would never suggest such a thing.

Federal contracting records show without explanation that Fuentes refunded $250,000 to the IHS this month, and he said in an interview last week that he gave back money when he procured masks at a slightly reduced cost.

[...]

Fuentes’ contract price of $3.24 per mask is more expensive than the pre-pandemic rate of about $1 per mask, but far less than what some government entities have paid at the height of the crisis. Mask costs can vary widely depending on availability, demand, quality and exact specifications.

[...]

Fuentes’ new company has also received a much smaller contract from the Bureau of Prisons to provide 10,000 N95 masks for $1.31 each, according to a BOP statement to ProPublica and procurement documents.

Hang on. Why does the BOP get a better rate - a MUCH better rate - than the Indian Health Service?

Fuentes is a retired Coast Guard officer and protege of former White House chief of staff John Kelly. He formerly served as Kelly’s military aide while he was secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and Fuentes followed Kelly to the White House. In December 2018, as Kelly prepared to leave, The New York Times reported that Fuentes had told associates he planned to “hide out” in a vague role at the White House until he qualified for a Coast Guard early retirement program. Fuentes retired in January from the Coast Guard after 15 years of service. He said his retirement was for medical reasons.

That all sounds a bit weird.

In April, the FDA authorized the use of masks made by close to 90 manufacturers in China.

But the masks made by some of those manufacturers did not pass CDC tests because they did not filter out enough fine particles. In some cases, the masks failed utterly.

Should they not have been tested before they were authorized?

This month, the FDA rescinded its authorization for the vast majority of the Chinese manufacturers, published a much smaller list of respirators made by 14 approved manufacturers and tightened the standards for evaluating Chinese masks.

In the meantime, how many faulty masks were used?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.