Is Washington ‘corrupt beyond repair’?

A former defense contractor who once had his life threatened by a
defense contracting official in the presence of government lawyers says,
Washington is “too corrupt to fix” and is being “run by a bunch of
22-year-old staffers who think the whole thing’s funny.”

Bill White, who has spent 18 years in and around Washington, D.C.,
told WorldNetDaily he has witnessed the corruption “up close and
personal” after the Department of Defense (DOD) “squeezed” his defense
firm out of business.

But White, who said it takes “in the neighborhood of 10 years” to
build even a small defense contracting company because of intense DOD
requirements, said the loss of his firm, Logics Inc., is “just a symptom
of the overall problem with corruption in Washington, D.C.”

“I wanted to tell my story because it’s not just about losing my
company,” he said. “It’s much bigger than that. The whole system
operates this way, and that’s the way they want it. There is no system
of checks and balances anymore.”

His experience began in 1989 when his company — an electronics
manufacturing firm — began applying for — and winning — modest
defense contracts. White said he bid on military projects because, as a
minority firm, his company qualified for an accelerated payment program.
White was qualified for the program because he is ethnically Hispanic,
though he adopted his stepfather’s Anglo name years ago.

Logics’ first contract came in the form of a $3.2 million award to
build satellite communications equipment for Navy warships. White, who
is a meticulous organizer, hyper-trained his staff and streamlined his
operation in order to make it as efficient as possible and, hence, more
appealing to government contracting officers who sought to get the most
for the taxpayer’s money.

When it was all over, the company won immediate praise from
government and DOD officials, and even navy personnel who were tasked
with using his firm’s equipment called to express their gratitude.

“We were getting calls from naval field personnel telling us how well
our gear was performing,” White said. “We were also recognized by the
Army for the seven products we had built that were used in Persian Gulf
war weapons systems.” He added, “We shipped over 20,000 weapons systems
and never once had a failure.”

After being named the Pentagon’s small business contractor of the
year, White continued to pursue military construction bids, winning Army
contracts to build 16,000 copies of a component to keep TOW missiles
from misfiring, an upgraded missile launch control panel, and 64 copies
of a critical component for the Firefinder radar system on the Army’s
Multiple Rocket Launch System (MLRS).

But just as the years of painstaking effort necessary to comply with
government defense contractor specifications were finally beginning to
pay off, White said the government threw him a curve ball.

In a series of bids won by Logics, the government provided White’s
company with “flawed” technical data packages — packages of information
listing the government’s particular specifications for the construction
of key system components. White said each company “has to build the
exact same component because they are all supposed to be
interchangeable” in the military’s weapons systems, no matter who builds
them.

The flawed technical data caused Logics several production delays and
unnecessary cost overruns on a few Army contracts while trying to
re-engineer the mistakes. And, under government procurement rules, a
contractor can file a claim for reimbursement when he incurs extra costs
as a direct result of “government error or inaction.” So White was
confident his government-caused, out-of-pocket expenses would be taken
care of.

But the Pentagon and the Defense Department were slow to reimburse
Logics for the unnecessary development costs. So slow, in fact, that
before Logics received reimbursement on their first claim — some 19
months later — the company had to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
protection.

He now says he believes the flawed specifications in the data
packages were more than simply the result of incompetence — a problem
rife in the Clinton administration’s Department of Defense. He thinks
the data was intentionally misrepresented and erroneous, especially
after learning from an admiral in the Pentagon that the “unofficial
rule” within the defense procurement bureaucracy is to squeeze out small
contractors like Logics — “no matter what.”

In the meantime, White said Logics continued development work because
he wanted to keep the contracts, but the company soon ran into other
problems.

For example, he said, the components his firm was constructing for
the Army MLRS contract were supposed to be tested, under the terms of
the agreement, by a transformer “that could not be purchased on the open
market nor produced by us because it was already patented by someone
else.”

“In other words,” he said, “the Army told us to build their
components — based on faulty information — then test them with an item
that was not commercially available.”

After some badgering, White said the Army finally produced one so he
could comply with the terms of the contract, but that was 94 weeks
later. Within days of delivering the transformer to Logics, White said
Army officials contacted him again and demanded he return it “so they
could send it to another company who was building the same components.”
Eventually he found out that “the ‘other’ company was Hughes, and they
already had one of the testing transformers. Yet the Army wanted mine,
too. Why?”

“They knew I couldn’t fulfill the contract without it,” he said.

During this same time period — unbeknownst to White — the Army had
awarded his contract to Hughes because Logics had failed “to make
progress” — even though it wasn’t their fault.

After years of delaying, but eventually paying, some of Logics’
claims, White said a government contract officer told him “even though
they knew they were in the wrong, they were simply not going to pay” the
last claim, worth nearly $600,000.

“When this occurred, keep in mind that the government admitted
that the technical data packages were seriously flawed,” he told
WorldNetDaily. “They admitted it in writing, and said they’d provide a
new delivery schedule, as well as the equipment to test the new gear.”

Initially, he said, “the (government contracting) officer told me
they would pay it. But when all of this got to court and we found out
during the discovery process that he had already terminated our contract
because of default, we realized we’d been had.”

The government has yet to pay White for “millions of dollars” in
other lost development costs due to “their own incompetence and
mistakes.”

White said “years of legal battles and court decisions” have proven
that Logics’ claims were not only legitimate, but that “the government
and in particular, the Army, systematically used frivolous and bogus
arguments to prolong” his cases.

But finally, an exasperated White realized he was fighting a losing
battle when a government contracting officer threatened his life “in
front of his attorneys.”

“The guy told me, ‘We’ll let you live if you give us a no-fault, no
cost termination,'” he said, referring to the signing of a waiver
absolving the federal government of any liability to pay White’s
still-pending claims. Said White, “His attorneys taunted me afterward,
telling me I’d never see a dime of my money.”

“I know I’m never going to get paid for this,” he admits, “but as I
said, this isn’t just about me. This story is about a government so
endemically corrupt that any avenue at redress is routinely and
intentionally denied, blocked, and circumvented.”

“If the government refuses to obey the lawful order of a court to pay
on a claim they know is legitimate, and if Congress refuses to intervene
as they consistently have done, what is a citizen to do?”

Harder to understand, he said, is Congress’ complicity. “These guys
know what is going on up there (in Washington) but won’t do a
damned thing about it.”

For example, reaching into his desk during the telephone interview
White told WorldNetDaily, “I’ve got a summons here in my hand from some
lawmakers that I received before all of the hoopla surrounding Clinton’s
impeachment began.” He was bewildered by its contents.

According to White, the letter contained an admission from Rep. Henry
Hyde “and four or five others in Congress” that they knew many of the
actions Clinton has been accused of were not only true but that they
amounted to treason.

He said the legislators accused Clinton of abusing “his power by
illegally firing White House Travel Office employees after making false
charges against them, and then illegally acquiring 900 confidential FBI
files on his enemies for the purpose of blackmail, extortion or
harassment.”

“When you call a sitting president treasonous,” White said, “you
better know what you’re talking about or you’ve got problems. But guess
what? These guys don’t care.” Lawmakers, he added, “will do nothing
unless you’re one of the big guys and you’re in their back pocket.”

“The fact is, these guys are allowing this government to scuttle
small companies because they know the small companies have no ability to
fight the government. Even if some of them win, their attitude is,
‘Hey, we’ve got to dispose of these cases without paying,’ even though
it’s the big companies that are ripping the government off blind.”

White admits that “not all lawmakers” are corrupt, but he said they
are few in numbers.

“After walking the halls of the Rayburn Building with these guys for
years, it’s my conclusion that most Americans simply have no idea how
bad” the corruption is in Congress and the White House. “But they need
to know. There is a total disconnect between Washington and the rest of
the country.”