Irregularities In COVID Reporting Contract Award Process Raises New Questions

As soon as I heard about the new process, I wondered if the company that got the contract benefited the Trumps or their friends, because of their habitual way of doing things.

https://www.npr.org/2020/07/29/896645314/irregularities-in-covid-reporting-contract-award-process-raises-new-questions


July 29, 20208:11 PM ET
Dina Temple- Raston
Tim Mak in 2018.


An NPR investigation has found irregularities in the process by which the Trump administration awarded a multi-million dollar contract to a Pittsburgh company to collect key data about COVID-19 from the country's hospitals.

The contract is at the center of a controversy over the administration's decision to move that data reporting function from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — which has tracked infection information for a range of illnesses for years — to the Department of Health and Human Services.

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Among the findings of the NPR investigation:

The Department of Health and Human Services initially characterized the contract with TeleTracking as a no-bid contract. When asked about that, HHS said there was a "coding error" and that the contract was actually competitively bid.

The process by which HHS awarded the contract is normally used for innovative scientific research, not the building of government databases.

HHS had directly phoned the company about the contract, according to a company spokesperson.

TeleTracking CEO Michael Zamagias had links to the New York real estate world — and in particular, a firm that financed billions of dollars in projects with the Trump Organization.

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