{"id":1199,"date":"2020-06-28T21:07:09","date_gmt":"2020-06-28T21:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/?p=1199"},"modified":"2020-06-28T21:07:09","modified_gmt":"2020-06-28T21:07:09","slug":"trump-suggests-navy-sent-5-billion-to-wisconsin-firm-to-help-him-win-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/?p=1199","title":{"rendered":"Trump Suggests Navy Sent $5 Billion to Wisconsin Firm to Help Him Win Election"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Robert Mackeyrobert<\/a><\/p>\n

As he read aloud a description that the frigates would be the \u201cfastest, most advanced, and most maneuverable combat ships anywhere on the ocean,\u201d Trump looked up and ad-libbed: \u201cI hear the maneuverability is one of the big factors that you were chosen for the contract. The other is your location in Wisconsin, if you want to know the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president then boasted that the \u201cmassive deal\u201d would boost employment in the state, which he won by less than 23,000 votes in 2016, by allowing the firm to keep \u201cyour 1,500 full-time employees\u201d on staff and hire another 1,000 people \u201call across the shipyards in Wisconsin.\u201d (The shipbuilding firm actually employs<\/a> 2,500 people in Wisconsin right now, not 1,500.)<\/p>\n

Trump also claimed that \u201can estimated 15,000 additional new jobs will be created through the Wisconsin supply chain,\u201d as a result of the contract. Moments later, Trump changed that estimate to 9,000 new jobs, without explaining why.<\/p>\n

Both estimates seem to be vastly inflated. Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, said in April<\/a> that the contract could create \u201cmore than 5,000 direct and indirect jobs\u201d over the course of its 10-year duration. The projection seemed to come from Fincantieri, the shipbuilding firm, which told reporters<\/a> that the contract could create 1,000 new jobs at the shipyard and 4,000 more at the company\u2019s suppliers.<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s remarks, which were transcribed by the White House<\/a>, could be grounds for one of the three firms that lost out on the contract \u2014 Ingalls Shipbuilding of Pascagoula, Mississippi, Austal USA of Mobile, Alabama and Bath Iron Works of Bath, Maine \u2014 to file a protest<\/a> with the Government Accountability Office\u2019s Procurement Law Division. As the U.S. Naval Institute\u2019s news site reported<\/a> earlier this month, none of the firms contested the decision during the 30-day period after the bid was accepted, which is normally when protests are filed. But there is nothing normal about the commander-in-chief publicly admitting that the government contracting process was corrupted by political considerations.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Ingalls declined to comment on the president\u2019s remarks. Austal USA and Bath Iron Works did not immediately reply to questions from The Intercept about whether they might file a protest given this new information.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for James Geurts, the assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, who oversees more than $100 billion in spending each year, also did not reply to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Even if none of the other defense contractors complains about Trump\u2019s comment on how the contract was awarded, he seemed to be describing a violation of the Hatch Act<\/a>, a law that prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities while performing their official function.<\/p>\n

As Nick Schwellenbach, a senior investigator at the Project On Government Oversight, observed<\/a> after Trump blurted out that the Navy contract was awarded due to the shipyard\u2019s location in an important electoral college state, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, the independent federal investigative agency that enforces the Hatch Act, concluded<\/a> in a 2007 report on improper political activities by a Bush administration official: \u201cOne can imagine no greater violation of the Hatch Act than to invoke the machinery of an agency, with all its contracts\u2026in the service of a partisan campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the president and vice president are exempt from Hatch Act restrictions, Schwellenbach explained<\/a>, White House officials are not. Last year, the head of the OSC, Henry Kerner, wrote to Trump<\/a> to recommend that he fire Kellyanne Conway for repeated violations of the law.<\/p>\n

In his speech, which he frequently delivered as if he was at a campaign rally rather than an official appearance, the president also joked about his ignorance of why the Navy\u2019s FFG(X) shipbuilding project had that name. After reading the letters aloud, Trump mistakenly said, \u201cFX! Is that good? FX!\u201d The president then suggested that \u201cnobody knows\u201d what those initials stand for. As the Congressional Research Service explained this month<\/a>, \u201cFF means frigate, G means guided-missile ship\u2026 and (X) indicates that the specific design of the ship has not yet been determined.\u201d<\/p>\n

In another portion of the speech devoted to praising himself, Trump also claimed that he had personally intervened in the design of the new Navy frigate. \u201cThe ships that they were building, they looked terrible. I changed designs. I looked at it. I said, \u2018That\u2019s a terrible looking ship. Let\u2019s make it beautiful. It\u2019ll cost you the same, and maybe less,’\u201d the president told workers at the shipyard.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018This is not a good-looking ship, let\u2019s change the design of it.\u2019 And I got people in, and we looked at different designs,\u201d Trump added. \u201cAnd look at what you\u2019re doing, how beautiful it is. They gave me a beautiful model that\u2019s absolutely\u2026. It\u2019s like a yacht with missiles on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the Green Bay Press Gazette reported<\/a> in April, Marinette Marine, which has built ships in Wisconsin since the 1940s, was acquired by the Italian yacht-maker Fincantieri in 2009. The firm\u2019s winning frigate design is based on an Italian warship that already exists, and was not designed by the president.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Robert Mackeyrobert As he read aloud a description that the frigates would be the \u201cfastest, most advanced, and most maneuverable combat ships anywhere on the ocean,\u201d Trump looked up and ad-libbed: \u201cI hear the maneuverability is one of the big factors that you were chosen for the contract. The other is your location in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1199"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1200,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions\/1200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}