Questionable Trump projects

Independent  -   The Trump administration’s no-bid, $13.1 million contract to repair the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool featured “excessive” profit margins” and “inflated overhead,” according to federal documents. The deal, awarded to Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings, saw the contractor ask for 20 percent profits, roughly doubling the typical 6 to 12 percent margin on such projects, netting it at least $850,000 in extra compensation, per a National Parks Service analysis obtained by The New York Times.

The Reflecting Pool project contained other irregularities, the paper found, including that work reportedly began before a final price was agreed upon, a method more typically used in emergencies.  Ultimately, however, the government decided to move forward with the deal, according to the documents.  “The contracting officer determined that due to the risk of the project, the inflated overhead and profit percentages of 20 percent were reasonable,” the analysis concluded.

Independent -     A Trump-Kennedy Center official warned a federal judge that stripping the president’s name from the renowned arts institution would cause unbearable financial damage, marking the latest twist in a months-long legal battle.

Charles Matthew Floca, the center’s 39-year-old executive director, filed a declaration Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, arguing the institution’s funding is inextricably linked to President Donald Trump.

“President Trump’s fundraising on behalf of the Center is exemplified by the tens of millions of dollars already raised,” Floca wrote. “Further, the President has committed to raise $150 billion on its behalf from private donors over the next two years.”

“Should President Trump’s name be removed from the Center, that vital fundraising connection will be severed, causing irreparable harm and fundamentally destabilizing the Center’s development efforts, severely impairing its trust-fund artistic programming, and rendering the continuation of ongoing trust-funded operations financially nonviable,” he continued.

The Guardian -   The day before Donald Trump’s first term ended in 2021, he inked a pardon for Elliott Broidy, a scandal-plagued Republican fundraiser and former Republican National Committee official who had pleaded guilty three months earlier to trying to illegally lobby Trump and his administration.

Last month, a company headed by Broidy won a $106m contract from the Department of Justice, according to federal contracting records. Under the contract, awarded by the Bureau of Prisons to LEO Technologies, the company will use artificial intelligence to translate, transcribe and monitor prison phone calls. Broidy lists himself as the founder and CEO of LEO.  In a letter to the Guardian, LEO’s attorneys said Broidy sets the strategy of the company but does not run the day-to-day operations.