$300M Puerto Rico Contract Awarded To Tiny Firm Owned By Big Trump Donors

[deminks]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/whitefish-puerto-rico-utility-contract?utm_content=buffer04a9e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

A tiny Montana utility company that received a $300 million contract to help restore power to Puerto Rico after its electrical grid was devastated by Hurricane Maria is financed by major Trump donors and run by a CEO friendly with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, a series of recent reports has revealed.

The granting of the huge contract to Whitefish Energy Holdings, a two-year-old company that reportedly had two full-time employees when the hurricane first hit, was first reported by the Weather Channel last week.

The Washington Post and the Daily Beast on Tuesday offered more details on the company’s backers. The Post noted that the firm is based in Zinke’s hometown and that its CEO, Andy Techmanski, is friendly with the Interior secretary, while the Daily Beast reported that Whitefish’s general partner maxed out donations to the Trump primary and general election campaigns, as well as a Trump super PAC, in 2016.

That newly surfaced information has raised eyebrows about just why Whitefish was awarded a contract to restore electricity to hundreds of thousands of Puerto Rico residents. The firm insists that everything is above board, and both Zinke’s office and Techmanski told the Post that the Interior secretary played no role in securing the contract.

But as multiple publications have noted, the type of work Whitefish will be doing is usually handled through “mutual aid” agreements with other utilities, rather than by for-profit companies, especially those of Whitefish’s exceptionally small size.

“The fact that there are so many utilities with experience in this and a huge track record of helping each other out, it is at least odd why [the utility] would go to Whitefish,” Susan F. Tierney, a former senior official at the Energy Department told the Post. “I’m scratching my head wondering how it all adds up.”

(end snip)

Paging Mr. Mueller, Mr. Mueller to the white phone please...

[snowybirdie]

1. Perhaps their strategy

is to keep adding things to be investigated so Mueller won't have time to release a report. He'll just have to go on, and on, and on and on

[imanamerican63]

2. I just posted about this...

But you did a much better with explaining the story!