By Craig Harris, Bailey Schulz and Katie Wedell
Yes, I subscribe. It is not my only subscription.
Under intense pressure to deal with the COVID-19 crisis, (click here) state leaders across the country needed solutions and quick results in early 2020 to slow the spread of the coronavirus and repair battered economies.
And long-standing connections seemed to pave the way to those goals in a handful of Republican-led states.
Thanks, at least in part, to its ties with high-ranking Utah politicians, four companies within the tech business community in greater Salt Lake City got their first no-bid contract on March 31, 2020.
That deal was just the start. Those companies would within a year leverage their connections to sign deals that would pay them at least $219 million in five GOP-led states. Two of the companies would donate more than $1 million to Republican campaigns after getting those deals....
Ethical investigations need to go forward and legal investigations for influence peddling.
It is a very different thing to bring competent manufacturing to a national health emergency and then provide enormous political dividends to the people in office. No bid contracts can work if it is understood these are premier manufacturers that can immediately provide much needed products, but, that does not give permission for donations for more of the same. More of the same comes with fulfillment of contracts and benefits delivered to Americans.
IT IS CALLED A REPUTATION!
