\n<\/p>\n
A multi-billion dollar defense contractor that gets federal work without competition because of the hardships of life as an \u201cAlaskan native\u201d doesn\u2019t just have an apparently Eskimo-free executive suite \u2014 it passes through millions to the non-native companies of the CEO\u2019s husband, which don\u2019t even pretend to be indigenous.<\/p>\n
ASRC Federal\u2019s business model relies on racial preference laws that allow no-bid contracts for firms owned by minorities, with even larger contracts available to those owned by indigenous people. It is named after, and is owned by, the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, a for-profit company whose shares are held by 14,000 Inupiaq natives in a remote region of Alaska.<\/p>\n
There is little indication that the government\u2019s so-called 8(a) program is training disadvantaged indigenous people to do high-skilled work. The company declined to say how many Alaska natives work there. Its CEO is Jennifer Felix, a white woman who lives in a $4.3 million home in Loudoun County, Virginia, as The Daily Wire reported last month.<\/p>\n
Much of the money awarded to \u201cAlaskan\u201d-owned firms isn\u2019t done by those firms at all. ASRC has subcontracted $3.5 million to the companies of Jennifer Felix\u2019s white husband. Even without her salary from ASRC \u2014 which it declined to disclose \u2014 that\u2019s nearly enough to pay for their 14,000-square foot home with a guest house and private movie theater. Meanwhile, the largest village in the Inupiaq area has only one rusted-out, closed-down<\/a> theater.<\/p>\n \u201cThe 8(a) program wasn\u2019t designed to bankroll Beltway power-couples,\u201d said Tom Jones, president of the American Accountability Foundation, whose researchers tipped The Daily Wire off to the subcontracts. \u201cThis is a corrupt grift and Americans are paying for it.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2022, the Department of Homeland Security gave ASRC Federal Data Network Technologies LLC a $16.7 million contract for \u201cnetworking maintenance and engineering services.\u201d Nearly a fifth of the work \u2014 $3 million<\/a> \u2014 was subcontracted out to companies associated with Jennifer Felix\u2019s husband.<\/p>\n Ironically, the contract was to help the \u201cacquisition program management office,\u201d which deals with contracting policy \u2014 even as the contract is itself a case study in how the intent of the DEI program is blatantly being undermined.<\/p>\n Ken Felix was vice president at B&B Consulting Enterprises, a software firm. The company received more than $1.7 million<\/a> in subcontracts on the ASRC job. According to a lawsuit filed by B&B, the company terminated Ken from his $230,000-a-year job in September 2022.<\/p>\n He and another employee created Daurem LLC as a competing company, despite provisions in their contracts, and ASRC then moved the subcontract to Daurem, specifically naming Ken Felix as Program Manager, the suit said. Daurem LLC has received more than $1.2 million on that job.<\/p>\n Money subcontracted to the CEO\u2019s husband\u2019s firm means less profit for indigenous shareholders. Yet moves that undermine the goals of the 8(a) program are so common, and have historically faced so little scrutiny, that they aren\u2019t even hidden: ASRC, Daurem LLC, and the TSA won an award for their \u201cpartnership.\u201d The American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council lauded them for working together to develop \u201cbiometric identity verification technology, currently deployed at 10 high-volume international airports.\u201d<\/p>\n Agile Decision Sciences has disclosed 103 \u201cteaming partners,\u201d<\/a> a euphemism used in the 8(a) world that amounts to work being subcontracted out to non-disadvantaged firms, while being open about it with the government because the qualifications of the non-disadvantaged partner help convince the government to give the contract.<\/p>\n Even as the Alaska native contracting program was justified by the poverty and low-tech lifestyles of the indigenous people, its proposition rests on the idea that they are now developing America\u2019s most high-tech defense systems. In reality, the work is more often done by highly-paid white people in Virginia, the most common state where \u201cAlaskan\u201d firms operate.<\/p>\n Jennifer Felix has showered liberal politicians with tens of thousands of dollars in donations to groups like \u201cPro-Choice Majority 2024,\u201d \u201cElect Dems Now,\u201d and the campaigns of Democrat Virginia senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner.<\/p>\n According to data from HigherGov.com<\/a>, the vast majority of the husband\u2019s company\u2019s government revenue has come from ASRC subcontracts. Another ASRC subsidiary gave Daurem LLC a $480,000 subcontract on a TSA contract that it got without competition \u2014 an eighth of the money paid out on the overall contract. The contract description<\/a> reads, \u201cThis is an 8(a) award to Agile Decision Sciences, LLC for a mobile phone app to do identity verification activities for transportation security officers.\u201d<\/p>\n ASRC said in a statement that \u201cAny characterization or suggestion that ASRC Federal has improperly steered contracts to its leadership\u2019s family members is materially false \u2026 Leaders including our CEO adhere to a strict corporate code of conduct and a conflict-of-interest policy to ensure proper protocols are followed.\u201d<\/p>\n B&B\u2019s lawsuit<\/a> said that Ken Felix arranged for other employees to leave the company to work directly at ASRC, and also teamed up with a different woman-owned business called Intellect Solutions LLC to bid on work that was, thanks to 8(a), earmarked exclusively for woman-owned contractors.<\/p>\n Daurem\u2019s lawyers replied that \u201cemployees do not owe fiduciary duties of loyalty post-employment and are therefore free to compete against a former employer.\u201d A judge rejected many of its arguments, and the lawsuit was settled soon after.<\/p>\n Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has said<\/a> his department is cracking down on the 8(a) program.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the Pentagon, $100 million sole-source contracts go out the door to these 8(a) firms almost every day<\/a> without any competition or opportunity for anyone else to bid,\u201d he said. \u201cIn many, many instances, these socially disadvantaged businesses don\u2019t even do work. They take a 10%, 20%, sometimes 50% fee off the top, then pass the contract off to a giant consulting firm.\u201d<\/p>\n The Small Business Administration, which doles out the 8(a) designation to companies, last week said it has moved to ban 624 firms because \u201camid the Biden-era DEI agenda, the 8(a) federal contracting program became rife with so-called \u2018socially and economically disadvantaged\u2019 firms who abused sole-source and set-aside contracts to enrich themselves with pass-through schemes.\u201d<\/p>\n Related: <\/b>How A Top Pentagon Contractor Enriches DC Insiders Using Law Intended To Help Eskimos<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n