Eyebrows Raised over Reyes’ Ties to Troubled Contractor

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The melee over who would be the next House intelligence committee chairman made our head spin. In fact, in our excitement over Reps. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) and Jane Harman (D-CA), we all but overlooked a bit of muck that attached itself to the man who was tapped to fill the post.

But the Washington Post helpfully reminded us on Saturday of a scandal from last year which threatened to tarnish the reputation of Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), the former border patrol agent and Vietnam gunner whom House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi has chosen to lead the intel panel.

Shortly after getting elected to Congress in 1996, Reyes began pushing for a pricey program to install surveillance cameras along the northern and southern U.S. borders. He also pushed for a certain business, International Microwave Corp., to win that contract, according to the Post, who broke the story in April 2005. The paper gave no details on how Reyes is said to have supported the company’s bid.

In 1999, IMC won the contract, worth over $200 million. And at the advice of the Immigration and Naturalization Service official who was managing the operation, the company hired Reyes’ daughter, Rebecca Reyes, to be his liaison at the company, the Post reported.

IMC’s performance on the program was so bad it verged on criminal, according to later investigations. Millions of dollars in overcharges were alleged, installation was so bad that some cameras never worked properly, and the entire exercise wasted money and “placed. . . national security at risk,” according to a GSA inspector general report. “[The program’s failures] placed Americans in danger,” onetime Border Patrol chief Carey James said, according to the Post.

Despite the failings — which happened, by nearly all accounts, only because of the near-complete lack of oversight by the company’s management or the government — Rebecca rose to become vice president of contracts for IMC. Oh — did I mention that the company also hired Reyes’ son, Silvestre Jr., to work as a technician?

Last year, Reyes denied interceding with officials to help IMC win the contract, and said he did not help his daughter land a job with the company. On Saturday, the Post reported that Reyes told a reporter that all subsequent investigations into the matter had been closed without finding any impropriety by him, his daughter or the company.

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