One of former President Donald Trump’s top advisers pressured agency officials to reward politically connected or untested companies with hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts as part of a chaotic response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the first findings of a investigation led by House Democrats.
Peter Navarro, who served as Trump’s deputy assistant and commercial consultant, verbally awarded a $ 96 million respirator deal to a company with connections at the White House. Subsequently, officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency were pressured to sign the contract after the fact, according to correspondence obtained by Congressional investigators.
Documents obtained by the House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, after a year of resistance from the Trump administration, offer new details about Navarro’s role in a wave of largely secretive purchase of personal protective equipment and medical supplies.
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But they also show that he was one of the first Trump officials to realize the urgency of the construction crisis, urging the president to pressure agencies and other officials to “fight the virus quickly in ‘Trump Hour'” and eliminate bureaucracy from federal government procurement system.
In another communication, Navarro was so adamant that a potential $ 354 million contract would be awarded to an untested pharmaceutical company that he said to a senior official at the Advanced Biomedical Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, “my head will explode if this contract explode is not approved immediately. “
Navarro did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The committee’s work supports investigations of ProPublica and other news outlets in the more than $ 36 billion the federal government has granted, much of it without traditional bidding and with little scrutiny, to address the COVID-19 pandemic.
At least five of the committee’s lines of investigation are exploring issues reported by ProPublica, including the $ 96 million respirator non-bidding agreement that was commissioned by Navarro, a $ 34.5 million agreement signed by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs that collapsed and ended with a contractor pleading guilty to fraud , a mask contract awarded to a former Trump administration official, and the revelation that FEMA paid millions to a contractor with a history of allegations of fraud by unusable and unhygienic fake test tubes.
In a letter outlining the subcommittee’s findings, Democrat James Clyburn of South Carolina and committee members told President Joe Biden’s emergency response team that Trump’s inaction has exacerbated the health crisis.
“The president rejected the appeals of the governors to ensure that the country had enough material (personal protective equipment) and other supplies to face the crisis, leading to serious shortages and forcing states and cities to compete in the open market,” they wrote.
The committee asked employees who oversee FEMA and the United States Department of Health and Human Services, along with the director of the National Archives, to provide records detailing Navarro’s actions and the circumstances behind several questionable contracts awarded in response to the pandemic, which left more than 550,000 Americans dead and many more suffering.
“In the absence of a coordinated national plan, several White House officials sought ineffective and ad hoc approaches to obtaining certain supplies. Recently obtained documents show that White House officials pressured federal agencies to issue uncompetitive contracts for certain pharmaceutical ingredients and other items – some of which would not be ready for many months or even years – even with the acute shortage of surgical masks, surgical gloves. nitrile, dresses and other items continued, ”wrote the subcommittee members.
The respirator agreement with Airboss Defense Group, a subsidiary of Canadian company Airboss of America, was reported by ProPublica in April 2020, after a highly unusual entry in federal purchasing data indicated that the contract had been ordered directly by the White House. The Trump administration provided few answers about the award, but the company’s records provided to Congress indicate that the company used an influential consultant to connect Navarro with Airboss CEO Patrick Callahan.
Retired Army four-star general John Keane, to whom Trump had recently awarded the Freedom Medal, contacted Navarro on behalf of Airboss and the company arranged a telephone meeting with the White House Coronavirus Task Force, show the emails. The emails indicate that the company delivered an initial batch of respirators to FEMA before any contract was closed, and the company increased its production with the promise that the White House and Navarro would make the contract official. The emails indicate the expectation that the company will be paid in cash, at the time of signing the contract. The federal government does not normally pay until a contract is closed and a product is delivered.
Airboss’ parent company nearly tripled its sales largely because of the deals Navarro helped the brokerage, the subcommittee wrote, and saw a $ 12 million increase in profit from April to June 2020. The company said it had not seen letters from the subcommittee, but defended its work with FEMA.
An Airboss spokesman said in a statement that the company is “proud of its successful efforts to respond quickly to urgent requests from the then White House Coronavirus Task Force to help provide the U.S. government with the necessary PPE equipment. urgently to save lives and protect our first-rate health professionals in the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic. Within days of requesting, ADG mobilized its extensive US PPE manufacturing resources and extensive supply chain network to produce and start delivering this critical equipment.
In a separate contract negotiation, this time for generic pharmaceuticals, Navarro lobbied FEMA and the employees who led the effort to increase a nationwide sell-out to award Phlow a potential $ 354 million deal to make drug ingredients. In an e-mail pressuring BARDA employees, Navarro wrote:
“This is a scam. I need PHLOW to be noticed on Monday morning. This is being messed up. Let’s move this now. We need to turn the switch and they cannot move until you do. TOTAL financing as we discussed. “
Democrats on the subcommittee noted that Phlow had never received a federal contract and had joined only a few months earlier, in January 2020. ProPublica left a message with a company spokeswoman, who has yet to respond.
In another public letter this month, the subcommittee expressed concern that Robert Stewart, CEO of Federal Government Experts LLC, who received a $ 34.5 million non-bid contract with VA and a smaller agreement with FEMA, was not cooperating with your investigation.
This contradicts the statements that his lawyer made before a federal district judge a few weeks earlier that Stewart was helping Congress investigators by pleading guilty to several counts of fraud. Stewart did not immediately respond to calls and text messages.