{"id":1561337,"date":"2022-07-19T13:35:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-19T17:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1561337"},"modified":"2022-07-19T13:35:03","modified_gmt":"2022-07-19T17:35:03","slug":"kathy-hochuls-new-york-sent-600-million-in-no-bid-covid-contracts-to-dem-megadonors-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/kathy-hochuls-new-york-sent-600-million-in-no-bid-covid-contracts-to-dem-megadonors-company\/","title":{"rendered":"Kathy Hochul\u2019s New York Sent $600 Million in No-Bid COVID Contracts to Dem Megadonor\u2019s Company"},"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\">30<\/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%2Fkathy-hochuls-new-york-sent-600-million-in-no-bid-covid-contracts-to-dem-megadonors-company%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=1561337&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><\/div>\n<p>New York governor Kathy Hochul&#8217;s administration funneled more than $600 million in no-bid COVID-19 contracts to a megadonor family that has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Democrat&#8217;s campaign.<\/p>\n<p>From December 2021 to March 2022, Hochul&#8217;s Department of Health paid $637 million in taxpayer funds to Digital Gadgets LLC for at-home COVID tests, the Albany\u00a0<em>Times Union<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesunion.com\/state\/article\/A-single-family-has-donated-300K-to-Hochul-17310875.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported<\/a>. That company\u2014which is based in New Jersey and sells hoverboards and other electronics through television shopping network QVC\u2014is led by Charlie Tebele, whose family has contributed nearly $300,000 to Hochul&#8217;s campaign. The purchases were made under Hochul&#8217;s November coronavirus state-of-emergency order, which suspended the state&#8217;s competitive bidding process for COVID-related spending.<\/p>\n<p>The ordeal marks the latest example of how Democratic governors have used the pandemic to award their political allies. In April of 2020, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer (D.) <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/coronavirus\/michigan-governor-whitmer-awards-coronavirus-contract-to-dem-consulting-firm\/\">awarded a contract<\/a> for the state&#8217;s contact-tracing operation to a Democratic consultant who then retained one of Whitmer&#8217;s own campaign vendors, liberal data behemoth NGP VAN, to work on the project. After the <em>Washington Free Beacon<\/em> exposed that deal, Whitmer <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/coronavirus\/facing-criticism-whitmer-rescinds-contract-awarded-to-dem-consulting-firm\/\">rescinded the contract<\/a> and said her office had no role in awarding it. Internal emails, however, later showed that Whitmer&#8217;s office <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/coronavirus\/internal-emails-contradict-michigan-governors-story-on-controversial-coronavirus-contracts\/\">gave the &#8220;green light<\/a>&#8221; to move forward with the plan.<\/p>\n<p>Hochul is not the only New York Democrat to award a COVID contract to Digital Gadgets after taking campaign cash from the owner&#8217;s family. In the spring of 2020, then-New York City mayor Bill de Blasio&#8217;s administration <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecity.nyc\/coronavirus\/2020\/4\/8\/21216828\/quest-for-covid-gear-brings-119-million-deal-with-de-blasio-donor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">awarded<\/a> $119 million in no-bid coronavirus contracts to the company shortly after the Tebele family gave the Democrat&#8217;s presidential campaign roughly $30,000. Digital Gadgets, however, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thecity.nyc\/coronavirus\/2020\/5\/13\/21259524\/city-cancels-91-million-ventilator-contract-with-de-blasio-donor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">failed to provide<\/a> the 2,000 ventilators and 200,000 &#8220;breathing kits&#8221; it promised to the city, causing the de Blasio administration to cancel a $91 million contract that was part of its deal with the megadonor family&#8217;s company.<\/p>\n<p>Hochul took office in August 2021 after disgraced Democrat Andrew Cuomo resigned in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations. Hochul has leveraged her relationships with deep-pocketed megadonors such as the Tebeles to raise a record-breaking $34 million since becoming governor. She emerged from New York&#8217;s gubernatorial primary in June and will face Republican challenger Lee Zeldin in November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New York governor Kathy Hochul&#8217;s administration funneled more than $600 million in no-bid COVID-19 contracts to a megadonor family that has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Democrat&#8217;s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":1891455,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1561337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_finder_url":"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/democrats\/kathy-hochuls-new-york-sent-600-million-in-no-bid-covid-contracts-to-dem-megadonors-company\/","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561337","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\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1561337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1891455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1561337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1561337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1561337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}