The Daily Wire has learned that the Small Business Administration has ordered all 4,300 firms in its 8(a) “socially disadvantaged” program, which receive no-bid federal contracts, to turn over their financial records, including general ledgers, bank statements, payroll files, subcontracting agreements, and other internal documents, by January 5 or face removal from the program.
SBA’s crackdown on one of Washington’s oldest DEI initiatives follows mounting evidence that some 8(a) firms have become a major pipeline for fraud, pass-through schemes, and artificially inflated contract costs.
Late last month, Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute and the investigative journalist who broke the Clinton Cash corruption story, published a report exposing the cronyism and corruption inside the 8(a) program, where pass-through firms handed bidless contracts on silver platters while quietly outsourcing the real work to major consulting companies.
“For years, DC insiders have exploited a federal DEI contracting program that provides windfalls to Beltway elites. This open secret isn’t about helping the downtrodden; it’s about bagging no-bid paydays. The SBA’s 8(a) program is long overdue for reform,” Schweizer wrote on X.
It astounds me that it isn’t an annual audit and compliance review. Just throw money at it.