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DHS report: Shirlington Limo should not have gotten contract |
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By Mike Soraghan
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Posted: 05/14/07 07:33 PM [ET] |
A Washington transportation company that was questioned in the Randy “Duke” Cunningham investigation should not have been awarded its contract with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the department’s internal watchdog said.
In a report obtained by The Hill, the department’s inspector general says Shirlington Limousine and Transportation Inc. was not qualified to receive the contract and instead was given an unfair advantage over its competitors by DHS officials.
DHS’s procurement office, the report says, “awarded the contract to a non-responsible contractor.”
Shirlington Limousine owner Christopher Baker says the allegations are untrue charges that were ginned up by a competition and exploited for political gain. He said the inspector general never contacted him to get his side of the story.
“It’s like I’m getting shot at when I don’t have a gun,” Baker told The Hill yesterday.
Baker was awarded the original contract in April 2004. Now on the verge of losing that contract, he has filed a lawsuit in federal court against DHS to keep it.
An organization of federal contractors who operate in impoverished areas, the HUBZone Contractors National Council, agrees with Baker and is asking Congress to get involved. In a letter to congressional committees last week, the trade association’s chairman, Ronald Newlan, said that the department violated federal contracting rules in its zeal to get rid of Shirlington Limousine. DHS is also jeopardizing other contracting opportunities for small companies in poor areas, the organization says.
“When we allow the federal government to deviate from federal law, they get in the habit of doing it,” Newland said in an interview yesterday.
Shirlington became the target of congressional probes last spring when press reports linked the company to the scandal surrounding former Rep. Cunningham (R-Calif.). The firm had been awarded a five-year contract to shuttle DHS employees around in vans. The contract was renewable each year under the HUBZone program, which limits competition to low-income areas. In total, the company had contracts with the department worth $25 million over six years.
HUBZone stands for “historically underutilized business zone.”
The revelations about Shirlington Limousine sparked congressional inquiries and hearings in May 2006. Shortly after the congressional hearings, the department decided in June 2006 to overhaul its shuttle contract with Shirlington. That triggered the current round of lawsuits and accusations about DHS violating federal contract laws to get rid of Shirlington.
DHS said it was trying to fulfill its mission of integrating its diverse components, rather than trying to exclude Shirlington from the contract.
The inspector general report, which was requested by House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), found that DHS officials gave Shirlington an unfair competitive advantage by telling the company about the department’s transportation needs two months before it notified the public and Shirlington’s competitors. The report also said Shirlington didn’t have the right kind of vans until two months after it started work on the contract.
Shirlington is also mentioned in a bribery indictment against Brent R. Wilkes, a California businessman who is charged with paying the firm to ferry Cunningham around Washington as part of more than $700,000 worth of perks. Those favors were intended to get him to steer lucrative federal contracts to companies that Wilkes controlled.
And Mitchell J. Wade, a defense contractor who has admitted bribing the former congressman, told prosecutors that Wilkes had an arrangement with Shirlington Limousine, which in turn had a relationship with at least one escort service, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Cunningham resigned in 2005 after pleading guilty to taking bribes from Wade. He is serving a prison term of up to eight years.
Baker has said he did nothing wrong in his interaction with Cunningham, Wilkes and Wade. He said he became a scapegoat in the Cunningham scandal and was a convenient target for Democrats in election-year politics.
Shirlington Limousine has denied any involvement with prostitution. Yet the San Diego Union-Tribune cited a letter from Baker’s lawyer, Bobby Stafford, saying that Baker “provided limousine services for Mr. Wilkes for whatever entertainment he had in the Watergate [Hotel]” from the company’s founding in 1990 through the early 2000s. The letter also stated Baker was “never in attendance in any party where any women were being used for prostitution purposes.”
Shirlington Limousine filed a lawsuit April 30 in federal court against the Union-Tribune, alleging it published false allegations about Shirlington shuttling prostitutes. Attempts to reach Union-Tribune officials were not successful. |
