{"id":1333521,"date":"2022-02-23T11:34:20","date_gmt":"2022-02-23T16:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1333521"},"modified":"2022-02-23T16:38:37","modified_gmt":"2022-02-23T21:38:37","slug":"obvious-stench-donors-to-buttigiegs-mayoral-campaigns-later-awarded-over-30-million-in-city-contracts-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/obvious-stench-donors-to-buttigiegs-mayoral-campaigns-later-awarded-over-30-million-in-city-contracts-report\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Obvious Stench\u2019: Donors To Buttigieg\u2019s Mayoral Campaigns Later Awarded Over $30 Million In City Contracts: Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fobvious-stench-donors-to-buttigiegs-mayoral-campaigns-later-awarded-over-30-million-in-city-contracts-report%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1333521&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/02\/GettyImages-1238357673.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>While he served as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, between 2012 and 2020, prior to being selected as President Biden\u2019s Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg\u2019s top political donors reportedly received millions of dollars in city contracts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cButtigieg\u2019s political action committees took money from 23 companies who then got jobs from South Bend\u2019s Board of Public Works on which he was seated, documents obtained by DailyMail.com reveal,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-10521059\/Pete-Buttigieg-took-250k-donors-awarded-33M-city-contracts-mayor.html\">The Daily Mail<\/a> reported on Wednesday, adding, \u201cOn two occasions, the former presidential candidate received donations the same day the companies were awarded contracts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The funds contributed by the aforementioned companies, their executives and spouses amounted to a whopping $253,750 to Buttigieg\u2019s campaigns; those donors allegedly received a total of at least $33,310,426 in city contracts between 2011 and 2019.<\/p>\n<p>Taxpayers Protection Alliance president David Williams commented:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em>The pattern of contracts and donations appears to be a huge conflict of interest. This really doesn\u2019t bode well for the secretary of transportation when he has access to almost $1.2trillion in infrastructure money. This is alarming, and very concerning, because this is the swamp personified. You don\u2019t have to be a Rhodes Scholar to look at this and think that something\u2019s wrong here. Was there a quid pro quo? Was there some sort of backroom deal for these projects? taxpayers deserve answers.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>When The Daily Mail communicated with the city of South Bend, they were told that Buttigieg \u201cwas not involved in the awarding of engineering and construction contracts\u201d and that all contracts were awarded \u201cthrough a professional procurement process that is public and transparent\u201d and handed \u201cto the lowest, responsive, responsible bidder per State Law.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Daily Mail cited several examples of donors to Buttigieg\u2019s political campaign and subsequent interactions between Buttigieg and the companies connected to the donors.<\/p>\n<p>Buttigieg\u2019s 2011 mayoral campaign received $1,500 from a co-owner of Indiana infrastructure firm American Structurepoint; representatives from the company met with Buttigieg in the autumn of 2012, and two months later Buttigieg revealed former American Structurepoint executive Eric Horvath would be director of the South Bend Department of Public Works (BPW).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs part of his role, Horvath also became executive director of the Board of Public Works \u2013 the city committee that grants public money for large construction jobs,\u201d The Daily Mail pointed out, adding, \u201cThe following year, American Structurepoint was awarded a contract for the South Bend Smart Streets Project, which had a total budget of $25 million. Between January 2014 and March 2019, senior executive vice president at the company Greg Henneke donated $31,850 to Mayor Pete\u2019s campaigns.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, American Structurepoint reportedly reaped over $790,000 in city contracts from the Board of Public Works.<\/p>\n<p>In February 2017, Henneke donated $1,000 to Buttigieg\u2019s campaign to become Democratic National Committee chair; one day later American Structurepoint was given $98,860 in two contracts.<\/p>\n<p>In 2011 Buttigieg\u2019s mayoral campaign received $750 from the construction company DLZ Indiana; in 2013, the city of South Bend hired DLZ for a study regarding city streets. \u201cAfter Buttigieg attended another DLZ golf luncheon in July 2013, the company was awarded the bid for construction worth $113,000,\u201d The Daily Mail reported, noting, \u201cThe firm\u2019s subsidiary DLZ Industrial LLC gave a further $600 to the mayor\u2019s campaign in August 2016, and a month later DLZ Indiana was awarded a $17,430 contract from the BPW. In February 2017 DLZ Industrial gave $5,000 to Pete For DNC, and a slew of further contracts followed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ram Rajadhyaksha, a senior vice president at DLZ, told The Daily Mail, \u201cDLZ takes pride in providing quality engineering and architectural services at highly competitive fees, and has done so for many years prior to Mayor Buttigieg holding elected City office.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTwo construction firms, Abonmarche and Donohue &#038; Associates, also received city contracts the same day their executives donated to Buttigieg\u2019s mayoral campaign, according to documents. Donohue &#038; Associates president Craig Brunner and his wife Sandra gave $1,000 to the campaign on August 8, 2017, the same day Brunner\u2019s company was awarded a $150,000 job by the city,\u201d The Daily Mail noted. \u201cTwo weeks later on August 22 that year, Abonmarche\u2019s board chairman John Linn gave $2,000 to Mayor Pete\u2019s campaign. The same day, the South Bend BPW approved a $75,700 contract for the company.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Scott Greytak, Director of Advocacy for Transparency International, said Buttigieg\u2019s habit of receiving money from companies his public works board awarded city contracts to carried an \u201cobvious stench,\u201d adding:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em>I\u2019m stunned if it is true that South Bend Indiana doesn\u2019t have laws on the books that prohibit this. \u2026 At the federal level, this would be entirely illegal. A federal contractor cannot make a contribution to a candidate, because of the obvious conflict of interest. \u2026 The laws in South Bend should be just as strong. You\u2019re not going to find a smoking gun in how access, influence and power works in American politics. So campaign finance restrictions are supposed to serve as proxies for preventing corruption. The idea that a company that has either a potential or a pending contract, or recently was a government contractor, is able to so expressly and openly give money to the people involved in those decisions, is a fundamentally corrupt system. I\u2019m stunned that the elected leaders there would want to operate in a system that allows for such potential perception of corruption.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire\u2019s first original film, Shut In, has made its cinematic debut, being met with rave reviews. The Daily Wire is building an alternative to the leftist entertainment industry, one gripping movie at a time. Join us in this mission and stream Shut In today by becoming a Daily Wire\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em>member<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While he served as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, between 2012 and 2020, prior to being selected as President Biden\u2019s Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg\u2019s top political donors reportedly received<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1333521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1333521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1333521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1333521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1333521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}