A massive nine-figure scandal plaguing former President Joe Biden and his failed administration has been almost entirely ignored by the mainstream media – but it may be impossible for them to look the other way for much longer.
A new inspector general’s report accuses the Biden administration of bypassing federal laws to award a jaw dropping $529 million no-bid contract to a nonprofit to a former Biden transition team advisor.
The massive contract raises questions about Biden’s cronyism and wasteful spending at the height of the U.S.-Mexico border crisis.
The Administration of Children and Families (ACF), which operates under the Department of Health and Human Services and manages illegal immigrant minors, awarded the massive nine-figure contract in March 2021 to Family Endeavors Inc. to establish and manage an emergency intake site with 2,000 beds in Pecos, Texas.
The Biden White House claimed they couldn’t follow the law and gave out the massive no-bid contract because of the COVID emergency the president had just declared. However, according to the Office of Inspector General’s report released Thursday, the Biden White House failed to follow federal law requiring full and open competition simply due to “insufficient planning.”
The contract beginning in March 2021 was “by far the largest ever” for Family Endeavors Inc., and came just two months after the nonprofit hired Andrew Lorenzen-Strait, who joined the company after serving as an advisor to the Biden-Harris transition team.
The inspector general found that the contract price was more than double the agency’s own cost estimate of $244 million. The agency then modified the payments 15 times, extending the period until May 2022 and increasing the total payout to more than three times the original estimate.
“ACF knew well in advance of March 2021 that it was projected to need more shelter beds than existing sites could provide and should have begun contract planning at that time,” the inspector general’s report states. “ACF failed to reasonably conduct the necessary advanced planning to execute a contract for procurement of those beds and related services using full and open competition.”
The report says ACF made only a limited attempt to conduct necessary research for the contract, and did not even follow the findings it came up with.
“On March 5, 2021, Endeavors emailed ORR offering emergency assistance for the care of unaccompanied alien children. On March 13, 2021, Endeavors emailed ORR again with an unsolicited proposal, which included a statement of capabilities and concept of operations for an emergency shelter to serve unaccompanied alien children. Three days later, on March 16, 2021, ACF awarded a firm-fixed-price sole source contract to Endeavors to provide and operate an EIS facility in Pecos, Texas,” the report states.
Lorenzen-Strait joined Family Endeavors as a Senior on January 20, 2021, the same day President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were sworn into office.
In September 2023, Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., then chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C., then chairman of the House Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations and Accountability, sent a letter to Lorenzen-Strait demanding documents and an interview about his ties to both the Biden administration and Family Endeavors.
“On January 20, 2021, Family Endeavors, Inc. (Endeavors) named you the Senior Director for Migrant Services and Federal Affairs. Immediately preceding your position with Endeavors, you served on the Biden-Harris transition team, and previously was an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official,” the letter said. “In March 2021, just two months after you joined Endeavors, ICE awarded an $86.9 million sole source contract to Endeavors to provide beds and services in hotels for migrants who illegally crossed the Southwest border.”
The letter cites an undercover video recording from Project Veritas showing Lorenzen-Strait discussing his involvement in government contracts related to illegal immigrant services.
“Specifically, you refer to the Endeavors contract as a ‘corrupt bargain.’ You further discuss ‘brokering’ a deal that won Cherokee Federal, a team of tribally owned federal contracting companies, a nearly $2 billion contract with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to provide services to unaccompanied alien children,” the letter continues. “In the video, you admit that Cherokee Federal is not equipped to handle the contract. You also admit that while you are publicly involved with the company Deep Water Point & Associates, you hid participation in government contracts through the entities, VerdinPoint and The Tanager Group.”
A previous investigation by The Free Press found that 99.6% of Family Endeavors’ revenue comes from government contracts. The House Oversight Committee raised concerns that the size of the contracts awarded to Family Endeavors, the manner in which they were awarded, the firm’s lack of equivalent experience, the timing of Lorenzen-Strait’s hiring, and his connections to the Biden administration “combine to raise serious concerns of potential impropriety.”
Despite the size of the so-called “impropriety,” this nine-figure scandal has been ignored by the mainstream media for years.
How much longer can they overlook such a massive scandal?