DHS report: Shirlington Limo should not have gotten contract

From The Hill:

A Washington transportation company that was questioned in the Randy “Duke” Cunningham investigation should not have been awarded its contract with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the department’s internal watchdog said.


In a report obtained by The Hill, the department’s inspector general says Shirlington Limousine and Transportation Inc. was not qualified to receive the contract and instead was given an unfair advantage over its competitors by DHS officials.

DHS’s procurement office, the report says, “awarded the contract to a non-responsible contractor.”

The inspector general report, which was requested by House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), found that DHS officials gave Shirlington an unfair competitive advantage by telling the company about the department’s transportation needs two months before it notified the public and Shirlington’s competitors. The report also said Shirlington didn’t have the right kind of vans until two months after it started work on the contract.Shirlington is also mentioned in a bribery indictment against Brent R. Wilkes, a California businessman who is charged with paying the firm to ferry Cunningham around Washington as part of more than $700,000 worth of perks. Those favors were intended to get him to steer lucrative federal contracts to companies that Wilkes controlled.