In Washington, the sweetest deals happen before anyone’s paying attention. A handshake here, an email there, and suddenly taxpayer money flows like water to well-connected friends. Americans grew wearily accustomed to this dance during the Biden years.
This week, the receipts surfaced in spectacular fashion.
A new inspector general’s report has blown the lid off yet another questionable Biden administration deal—this time involving a nonprofit with convenient ties to the president’s own transition team. Funny how that keeps happening, isn’t it?
The half-billion-dollar handshake
In March 2021, as the border crisis spiraled under Biden’s watch, the Administration for Children and Families quietly awarded a $529 million sole-source contract to Family Endeavors Inc. for emergency shelter beds in Texas.
Here’s where it gets interesting. Just two months earlier, Family Endeavors hired Andrew Lorenzen-Strait as Senior Director for Migrant Services. His previous gig? Advisor to the Biden-Harris transition team.
The timeline is breathtaking. March 5: Endeavors emails offering help. March 13: They submit a proposal. March 16: They’re holding a contract worth over half a billion dollars. No competitive bidding. No open competition. Eleven days from cold call to payday.
From the Inspector General’s report:
“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. 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 agency blamed COVID emergencies. The inspector general called it “insufficient planning.” I’d call it something else entirely.
Following the money
That $529 million? More than double the agency’s own estimate of $244 million. By April—one month in—they’d already paid $255 million to a nonprofit whose entire 2018 budget was $43 million. You can’t make this stuff up.
When investigators asked for pricing documentation, ACF couldn’t produce any. “Significant time constraints,” they claimed. The contract was modified fifteen times and ballooned to triple its original value.
The Trump administration has since canceled this mess and implemented real accountability measures. That’s how you clean house.
But here’s my question: Why should looking forward mean forgetting? The Biden administration operated like taxpayers were an endless ATM for connected insiders. This report is just one thread in a larger tapestry we’re still unraveling.
Call me old-fashioned, but Americans who document every receipt deserve to know where their money went. And the people responsible? They deserve consequences—because corruption shouldn’t come with an expiration date.
Key Takeaways
- Biden’s ACF awarded $529 million to a nonprofit led by a transition team insider—without competitive bidding.
- The contract price was more than double the agency’s own internal cost estimate.
- When investigators asked for documentation, officials couldn’t produce any.
- The Trump administration has since canceled the contract and implemented accountability measures.
