Sen. Joni Ernst Proposes to Stop No-Bid Awards Paid in SBA Bribery Schemes

Sen. Joni Ernst Proposes to Stop No-Bid Awards Paid in SBA Bribery Schemes

BREITBART

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) on Monday introduced legislation that would prevent the abuse of government contracts, after hundreds of millions of dollars went to bribery schemes over several decades.

Following the allegations of a $100 million fraud scheme through the abuse of the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) 8(a) program, Senate Small Business Committee Chair Joni Ernst introduced the Stop 8(a) Contracting Fraud Act to prevent new no-bid awards until there is a detailed audit of the entire program.

“The 8(a) program is broken and needs to be completely reformed before another dollar goes out the door,” Ernst said in a written statement to Breitbart News.

“I will not allow taxpayers to be defrauded of hundreds of millions of dollars because the Biden administration invited con artists to have a free-for-all. It is common sense that SBA programs should help small businesses not serve as a personal piggy bank to criminals,” she said.

In October, O’Keefe Media Group published a video that alleged that Anish Abraham, a senior director at ATI Government Solutions, acknowledged that his company was a “pass-through” that got a $100 million contract, kept $65 million, and paid another firm $45 million to fulfill the contract:

BREAKING: ANOTHER Federal Contractor Admits to $100M Fraud. ATI Government Solutions Senior Director Anish Abraham Exposes Pass-Through Scam, Pocketing 65% of $100M IRS Contract While Outsourcing Work to Accenture.

OMG undercover footage shows ATI Senior Director Anish Abraham… pic.twitter.com/cylepaEtPw

— James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) October 22, 2025

Melayne Cromwell, director of contracts at ATI, reportedly said the firm only does roughly 20 percent of the work.

“A lot of our subcontractors bid on contracts that were perfect in their industry, but because they weren’t Native American, they wouldn’t win it, so we bid on it for them, and they became our subcontractor,” Cromwell said in the video.

In June, the Department of Justice announced that a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) official and three corporate executives pleaded guilty to a decade-long bribery scheme involving over $550 million in contracts…

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Header featured image (edited) credit: Government Accountability Office article tease open card. Emphasis added by (TLB)

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