The Trump administration is in talks to provide funding to some American drone companies, including Unusual Machines and Sequoia Capital-backed Neros, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Shares of Unusual Machines were up 37% in premarket trading on Thursday. Drone dominance was described as a &#8220;presidential priority&#8221; in President Donald Trump&#8217;s $1.5 trillion defense budget request for fiscal year 2027.
Months-long discussions between private-sector firms and the Pentagon have included the Office of Strategic Capital, a Biden-era lending unit focused on companies critical to national security supply chains, the Journal reported.
Unusual Machines is a drone components maker that counts Donald Trump Jr. as an adviser, while Neros is a startup specializing in autonomous drones.
Performance Drone Works, which won a contract to supply the U.S. Army with reconnaissance drones, is also under consideration for possible funding, the report added.
Reuters said it could not verify the report. The White House, Pentagon, and companies involved did not immediately respond to Reuters&#8217; requests for comment.
Some proposals being discussed include funding through a mix of debt and equity, which could give the government ownership stakes, the report said. Shares of Aureus Greenway, which is set to acquire drone technology company Powerus, rose nearly 30% before the bell. The deal is also backed by the Trump family. Shares of other U.S.-based drone companies, Red Cat, Kratos Defense, AeroVironment, and Swarmer rose between 7% and 13% in premarket trading on Thursday.
Last June, the Trump administration unveiled an executive order titled “Unleashing American Drone Dominance,” aimed at boosting the domestic drone industry through executive action. The plan called for faster approvals for beyond-visual-line-of-sight operations and expanded exports of American-made drones.
It also prioritized U.S.-manufactured systems for federal agencies and the military, while exploring financial incentives such as direct loans, loan guarantees, and equity investments to strengthen the sector against foreign competitors, particularly China.
&#8220;The time has come to accelerate testing and to enable routine drone operations, scale up domestic production, and expand the export of trusted, American-manufactured drone technologies to global markets,&#8221; the order stated.
&#8220;Building a strong and secure domestic drone sector is vital to reducing reliance on foreign sources, strengthening critical supply chains, and ensuring that the benefits of this technology are delivered to the American people.&#8221;
(Reporting by Ananya Palyekar in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Aishwarya Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonali Paul and Edwina Gibbs)

Group of drones against sunset sky

Trump Team Exploring Major Bet On U.S. Drone Makers

Department of Defense

Department of War

U.S. forces deployed to war zones have been targeted using location data harvested from phones and other consumer devices, according to reports fielded by military officials, highlighting how the global surveillance economy is reshaping modern battlefields.
In a letter shared with Reuters by U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, U.S. Central Command said it had “received multiple threat reports concerning adversary exploitation of commercial location data to target or surveil U.S. personnel in theater.&#8221; The message, sent on April 14, offered no further specifics, but Centcom&#8217;s area of responsibility includes the Gulf, where U.S. forces are facing off against the Iranian military over the Strait of Hormuz.
“That foreign adversaries are still able to buy location data collected from the phones of U.S. personnel serving in military hotspots is a direct result of DoD leadership’s failure to prioritize this threat and implement commonsense cyber defenses recommended by federal cybersecurity experts,” the letter stated.
The disclosure was the first official confirmation that U.S. forces had been targeted in an active war zone, Wyden and a bipartisan group of legislators said in a letter sent on Thursday to the Pentagon.
&#8220;Commercial location data can be used to identify where U.S. troops congregate and their pattern of life, which can be exploited by adversaries to target attacks such as missiles, drones, and roadside bombs, as well as for counterintelligence purposes,&#8221; the letter warned. Wyden said in a statement that it was time to &#8220;start treating the adtech industry as a national security threat.&#8221;
The Pentagon did not return messages seeking comment. The lawmakers said in their letter that their efforts to obtain more information from military officials about the reported targeting had been unsuccessful.
Location data is widely used in digital advertising, which is a key source of revenue for many tech companies. Such data is typically collected from smartphones or other devices by apps or service providers before being sold to data brokers who collate and resell the data, sometimes via complex networks of intermediaries.
Although the threat to privacy inherent in selling the details of people&#8217;s day-to-day movements on the open market has long been a matter of public discussion, its potential as a national security risk has recently drawn concern as well.
As far back as 2016, one U.S. defense contractor was able to leverage commercially available location data to track special operations forces from their bases in the United States to a sensitive staging post in Syria, according to an account first disclosed by the Wall Street Journal.
More recently, journalists at Wired and two German news outlets drew on billions of coordinates collected by a data broker to expose the granular comings and goings of people stationed at or around 11 U.S. military and intelligence sites in Germany.
Two groups that represent digital advertisers, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the Association of National Advertisers, did not return emails seeking comment.
The letter from U.S. lawmakers to the Pentagon said that, given what military officials know about the trade in location data, they should have acted faster to protect their personnel, for example by disabling the unique advertising ID attached to military-issued devices, automatically turning off location sharing on smartphones in the field, and steering staff away from Google&#8217;s Chrome web browser toward more privacy-focused alternatives.
One of the letter&#8217;s cosigners was U.S. Representative Pat Harrigan, a North Carolina Republican who was formerly a U.S. Army Special Forces officer. Harrigan said that browsers like Chrome &#8220;are built from the ground up to collect and share user data&#8221; and that every day they remain on government-issued devices &#8220;is another day we are handing our adversaries a weapon against our own troops.&#8221;
In a statement, Alphabet&#8217;s Google said that Chrome had &#8220;industry leading security.&#8221; The company added that it had &#8220;long advocated for stronger rules and safeguards against data brokers.&#8221;
&nbsp;
(Additional reporting by Raphael Satter in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

Special operations forces, Study geography and plan an attack on the enemy.

U.S. Troops Targeted Overseas Using Tool Millions Of Americans Carry Every Day

President Donald Trump made the largest military spending request in history on Friday, with a proposed budget for the 2027 fiscal year of $1.5 trillion in defense spending, of which $1.1 trillion would be allocated for the Department of War and $350 billion specifically for critical munitions.
The record request was announced in January after former Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro’s capture, but before the United States launched attacks on Iran. To pay for the uptick in defense spending, the White House proposes to reduce non-defense spending by 10%.
The White House says the spending request reflects the current global threat environment and restores the readiness and lethality of the United States military. The money would also include a salary increase for all military personnel, with junior enlisted members receiving the largest salary bump at 7%. Mid-level service members, E-6 to O-3, would receive a 6% pay raise, and higher-ranking officers would receive a 5% raise. The White House predicts the increase will help with service member retention and recruiting efforts.
Funds would also be directed to the construction of the United States’ “Golden Dome,” which would be similar to Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. The Golden Dome would track missiles through launch, in midcourse, and on their descent, potentially using space-based technology to intercept missiles. Unlike Israel’s Iron Dome, America’s Golden Dome would aim to stop long-range missiles and potentially hypersonic weapons, which are a growing concern posed by adversaries like China, Russia, and North Korea. 
The budget would also focus on “making shipbuilding great again,” adding 18 battle force ships and 16 non-battle force ships to the United States naval fleet. By ship count, <a href="https://www.usamm.com/blogs/news/ships-us-navy">China</a> currently has the largest navy, with the United States in second place.
Another large category of investment will be in critical mineral stockpiles. Currently, the United States Department of the Interior lists 60 minerals as critical, of which 15 are rare earth elements. The list ranges from aluminum to zinc, and the push reflects a broader strategy Trump employed in global negotiations. The president pushed to bring steel and aluminum production back to the United States while also taking a stake in MP Materials, which is the only fully integrated rare earth producer in America. Rare earth minerals are used in magnets and batteries, as well as defense applications and AI chips, making them a national security priority.
One of the Senate’s most prominent fiscal hawks, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), told The Daily Wire: “With total debt approaching $39 trillion, reduced spending in other areas will be required,” and &#8220;aggressively eliminating the $700 billion to $1 trillion in annual fraud would be the primary target.”
Johnson sees the road to getting the president’s request passed before the fiscal year begins on October 1 as challenging.
“Even though defense of our nation is the top priority of the government, Democrats will not support the president’s request,” said Johnson. The senator sees two paths ahead: Republicans voting to end the filibuster or pursuing a reconciliation appropriation process to get Republican votes.
If Republicans take the nuclear option, they would be able to pass bills with a simple majority of 51 votes instead of 60. The reconciliation appropriation process would also be challenging due to the Byrd Rule, which allows senators to block or remove parts of a reconciliation deal. A provision can be stripped out unless 60 senators vote to keep it, and with Republicans holding 53 seats, the road to 60 would be challenging.
President Trump signaled on Wednesday that defense spending is a top priority. “We’re fighting wars. It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare—all these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can’t do it on a federal.”
The federal government currently runs a deficit of $2 trillion. 
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the initial plan was for him to raise the United States&#8217; revenue by $1 trillion and for Elon Musk to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse by spending $1 trillion to balance the budget. Lutnick and Trump launched tariffs to increase revenue and created the gold card, which charges foreigners <a href="https://www.trumpcard.gov/">$1 million</a> for United States residency on the condition of background check approval. Revenues and spending cuts have fallen short of these expectations, creating tensions around increased military spending amid a runaway budget.

USS Nimitz, USS Gridley arrive in Panama on Southern Seas 2026 tour

Why Trump Just Requested The Largest Military Spending Budget In U.S. History

Budget

Defense

National Security

Politics

U.S. Military

A multi-billion dollar defense contractor that gets federal work without competition because of the hardships of life as an &#8220;Alaskan native&#8221; doesn&#8217;t just have an apparently Eskimo-free executive suite — it passes through millions to the non-native companies of the CEO&#8217;s husband, which don&#8217;t even pretend to be indigenous.
ASRC Federal&#8217;s 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.
There is little indication that the government&#8217;s 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.
Much of the money awarded to &#8220;Alaskan&#8221;-owned firms isn&#8217;t done by those firms at all. ASRC has subcontracted $3.5 million to the companies of Jennifer Felix&#8217;s white husband. Even without her salary from ASRC — which it declined to disclose — that&#8217;s 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, <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/27876493-cl-2023-16612comp/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">closed-down</a> theater.
&#8220;The 8(a) program wasn’t designed to bankroll Beltway power-couples,” said Tom Jones, president of the American Accountability Foundation, whose researchers tipped The Daily Wire off to the subcontracts. &#8220;This is a corrupt grift and Americans are paying for it.&#8221;
In 2022, the Department of Homeland Security gave ASRC Federal Data Network Technologies LLC a $16.7 million contract for &#8220;networking maintenance and engineering services.&#8221; Nearly a fifth of the work — <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_70T03022F7672N001_7013_HHSN316201200127W_7529" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$3 million</a> — was subcontracted out to companies associated with Jennifer Felix&#8217;s husband.
This was not an 8(a) contract, but it was still enabled by ASRC’s minority status. The $16.7 million award came through a <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_IDV_HHSN316201200127W_7529" target="_blank" rel="noopener">contract</a> limited to small businesses — the Alaska native program <a href="https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-13/chapter-I/part-121#se13.1.121_1201" target="_blank" rel="noopener">allows</a> native tribes to create an unlimited number of subsidiaries and have them count as a &#8220;small&#8221; business for purposes of contracting, even though they are owned by a multi-billion dollar one. If the company was a subsidiary of a white-owned business, it would not be eligible for small business contracts because its size would be based on the parent company.
Ironically, the contract was to help the &#8220;acquisition program management office,&#8221; which deals with contracting policy — even as the contract is itself a case study in how the intent of the DEI program is blatantly being undermined.
Ken Felix was vice president at B&amp;B Consulting Enterprises, a software firm. The company received more than <a href="https://www.highergov.com/awardee/b-b-consulting-enterprises-inc-10011973/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$1.7 million</a> in subcontracts on the ASRC job. According to a lawsuit filed by B&amp;B, the company terminated Ken from his $230,000-a-year job in September 2022.
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.
Money subcontracted to the CEO’s husband&#8217;s 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&#8217;t even hidden: ASRC, Daurem LLC, and the TSA won an award for their &#8220;partnership.&#8221; The American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council lauded them for working together to develop &#8220;biometric identity verification technology, currently deployed at 10 high-volume international airports.&#8221;
Agile Decision Sciences has disclosed 103 <a href="https://www.highergov.com/awardee/agile-decision-sciences-llc-10005368/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8220;teaming partners,&#8221;</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.
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’s 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 &#8220;Alaskan&#8221; firms operate.
Jennifer Felix has showered liberal politicians with tens of thousands of dollars in donations to groups like &#8220;Pro-Choice Majority 2024,&#8221; &#8220;Elect Dems Now,&#8221; and the campaigns of Democrat Virginia senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner.
According to data from <a href="https://www.highergov.com/awardee/daurem-llc-541097139/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HigherGov.com</a>, the vast majority of the husband&#8217;s company&#8217;s 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 — an eighth of the money paid out on the overall contract. The <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_70T04023C7573N002_7013_-NONE-_-NONE-" target="_blank" rel="noopener">contract description</a> reads, &#8220;This is an 8(a) award to Agile Decision Sciences, LLC for a mobile phone app to do identity verification activities for transportation security officers.&#8221;
ASRC said in a statement that “Any characterization or suggestion that ASRC Federal has improperly steered contracts to its leadership’s family members is materially false … Leaders including our CEO adhere to a strict corporate code of conduct and a conflict-of-interest policy to ensure proper protocols are followed.”
B&amp;B&#8217;s <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/27876493-cl-2023-16612comp/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">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.
Daurem&#8217;s lawyers replied that &#8220;employees do not owe fiduciary duties of loyalty post-employment and are therefore free to compete against a former employer.&#8221; A judge rejected many of its arguments, and the lawsuit was settled soon after.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/why-pete-hegseth-is-right-to-take-a-sledgehammer-to-the-8a-scam" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> his department is cracking down on the 8(a) program.
“In the Pentagon, $100 million sole-source contracts go out the door to these 8(a) firms almost <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/why-pete-hegseth-is-right-to-take-a-sledgehammer-to-the-8a-scam" target="_blank" rel="noopener">every day</a> without any competition or opportunity for anyone else to bid,” he said. “In many, many instances, these socially disadvantaged businesses don’t even do work. They take a 10%, 20%, sometimes 50% fee off the top, then pass the contract off to a giant consulting firm.&#8221;
The Small Business Administration, which doles out the 8(a) designation to companies, last week said it has moved to ban 624 firms because &#8220;amid the Biden-era DEI agenda, the 8(a) federal contracting program became rife with so-called ‘socially and economically disadvantaged’ firms who abused sole-source and set-aside contracts to enrich themselves with pass-through schemes.&#8221;
Editor&#8217;s note: This piece was updated with additional details about the contracts awarded to ASRC.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-a-top-pentagon-contractor-enriches-dc-insiders-using-a-law-intended-to-help-eskimos" target="_blank" rel="noopener">How A Top Pentagon Contractor Enriches DC Insiders Using Law Intended To Help Eskimos</a>

Jennifer Felix, CEO of ASRC Federal

Defense Contractor Used Minority Status To Win Contracts, Subcontracted To CEO’s White Husband

Investigation

Minority Contracting

The Department of War has awarded $45 billion in contracts to &#8220;Alaskan Native&#8221; companies in the last half-decade, fueled by minority-contracting laws. But Alaska Natives are hard to come by at the companies. Instead, the work most commonly happened in Virginia, with racial preference laws putting white, Democrat Beltway insiders in multi-million-dollar homes, while natives live in poverty.
No &#8220;Alaskan native&#8221; company got more contracts than ASRC Federal, which lists zero native executives. The company is named after, and is owned by, the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, a for-profit umbrella company representing 14,000 Inupiaq natives in a remote region of Alaska known as the North Slope. The company is <a href="https://www.forbes.com/lists/top-private-companies/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ranked</a> the 111th-largest private company in America, with $5.7 billion in revenue. It owns five million acres of land, including oil reserves whose sale leads to dividend payments to the natives.
Yet the most valuable resource might come from Washington, which in 1971 passed a law saying companies can get contracts without having to go through the competitive bidding process if they are at least 51% owned by Alaskan Natives. Other minorities can get no-bid contracts for nine years while they own a small business, but Alaskan firms retain the disadvantaged status even when they have billions of dollars in revenue.
That has led to business executives donning the skins of native people to get high-tech contracts, under the curious pretext that the natives dwelling in huts are learning to do advanced engineering. The scale of the riches that unleashes is mind-boggling.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1045703" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/asrc-leadership.jpg" alt="" width="1854" height="1698" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/asrc-leadership.jpg 1854w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/asrc-leadership-300x275.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/asrc-leadership-629x576.jpg 629w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/asrc-leadership-768x703.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/asrc-leadership-1536x1407.jpg 1536w" sizes=" (max-width: 1854px) 100vw, 1854px" /></div>
Last month alone, ASRC Federal announced that it was awarded a Defense Logistics Agency contract worth up to <a href="https://www.asrcfederal.com/defense-logistics-agency-awards-asrc-federal-up-to-2-3-billion-to-manage-chemical-and-oil-supply-chain/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$2.3 billion</a>, as well as a &#8220;Missile Defense Agency Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract with a ceiling of <a href="https://www.asrcfederal.com/asrc-federal-secures-position-on-missile-defense-agency-shield-contract-vehicle/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$151</a> [billion].&#8221;
The Department of War has awarded nearly one million separate contracts, totaling $45 billion, to &#8220;Alaskan Native&#8221; companies since fiscal year 2021, according to <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/search?hash=c138c3b3102e4ead5777696955f0e871" target="_blank" rel="noopener">USASpending.gov</a>. The most common &#8220;place of performance,&#8221; however, was Virginia. Less than 12% was spent in Alaska.
No company brought in more than ASRC Federal, which is made up of numerous subsidiary companies that exist to get federal contracts. ASRC Federal Facilities Logistics LLC billed taxpayers $2 billion, ASRC Communications Ltd. charged half a billion, ASRC Federal Field Services LLC earned $390 million, and ASRC Federal System Solutions LLC took $319 million.
ASRC Federal&#8217;s CEO is <a href="https://www.asrcfederal.com/about-us/#leadership" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jennifer Felix</a>, who lives in a $4.3 million, 14,000-square-foot home in Loudoun County, Virginia. The mansion sits on four acres and includes a guest home and private movie theater. Felix has showered liberal politicians with tens of thousands of dollars in donations since 2022, donating to groups like &#8220;Pro-Choice Majority 2024,&#8221; &#8220;Elect Dems Now,&#8221; and the campaigns of Virginia senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner.
Meanwhile, there is no sign that residents of the North Slope even have a public movie theater. The only theater in town is a now-closed, rusted hut, research from the American Accountability Foundation, a government watchdog group, found.
<div id="attachment_1045705" style="width: 1842px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1045705" class="size-full wp-image-1045705" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/felix-house.jpg" alt="" width="1832" height="1044" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/felix-house.jpg 1832w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/felix-house-300x171.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/felix-house-1011x576.jpg 1011w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/felix-house-768x438.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/felix-house-1536x875.jpg 1536w" sizes=" (max-width: 1832px) 100vw, 1832px" />Home of white &#8220;Alaskan Native&#8221; contractor CEO, replete with private movie theater</div>
<div id="attachment_1045707" style="width: 1918px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1045707" class="size-full wp-image-1045707" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/alaskan-theater.jpg" alt="" width="1908" height="1050" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/alaskan-theater.jpg 1908w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/alaskan-theater-300x165.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/alaskan-theater-1024x564.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/alaskan-theater-768x423.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/alaskan-theater-1536x845.jpg 1536w" sizes=" (max-width: 1908px) 100vw, 1908px" />Shuttered theater used by actual Alaskan Natives</div>
&#8220;Felix has a long history of working with government contractors, previously being employed with companies like General Dynamics, Sotera Defense Solutions, and Deloitte. She is, put simply, a typical Beltway bandit defense contractor,&#8221; the American Accountability Foundation wrote in a report provided to The Daily Wire.
Conservatives say no-bid minority contracting laws, known as 8(a), are wasteful and unfair. But the absence of actual Alaskan Natives at companies bearing their names raises questions about whether the program has even succeeded in its liberal-minded goal of lifting minorities out of poverty by training them in business.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth raised a similar question last month when he said that other minority-owned firms often subcontract the work to white-owned firms, while keeping a large cut for playing middleman. “In the Pentagon, $100 million sole-source contracts go out the door to these 8(a) firms almost <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/why-pete-hegseth-is-right-to-take-a-sledgehammer-to-the-8a-scam" target="_blank" rel="noopener">every day</a> without any competition or opportunity for anyone else to bid,” he said.
Joseph Winthrop, ASRC Federal&#8217;s chief financial officer, lives in a $2 million Loudoun County home replete with a wine cellar. Executive Scott Altman lives in a Georgetown townhouse and is paid $1.1 million a year, according to a recent contract disclosure.
Clifford Greenblatt lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, the historic domain of the Beltway elite, in a <a href="https://censusreporter.org/profiles/15000US240317054002-bg-2-tract-7054-montgomery-md/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">neighborhood</a> that is 0% black or native and has a $200,000 median per capita income. Chief Strategy Officer Ann Stevens lives on the banks of the Potomac River in Great Falls, Virginia.
It&#8217;s a vastly different life than the company&#8217;s Inupiat shareholders. &#8220;The supposed beneficiaries of the corporation – the Inupiat – live in conditions that would make most Americans cringe,&#8221; the American Accountability Foundation wrote. Alaskan Natives make up nearly all the people on welfare in the North Slope, with more than 17% collecting food stamps.
A spokeswoman for ASRC Federal, Aubrel Mellos, did not respond to questions including how many of the company&#8217;s employees are Alaskan Native, or what dividends from federal contract dollars have been paid out to native people. But she wrote in an email:
&#8220;Every ASRC subsidiary operates at the direction of ASRC&#8217;s 100% Iñupiaq Board of Directors for the benefit of its 14,000+ Iñupiaq shareholders. ASRC&#8217;s Board Members are directly selected by its Indigenous shareholders through annual elections. ASRC Federal&#8217;s operations, business priorities, and hiring are done to the benefit of ASRC&#8217;s Iñupiaq shareholders, who receive dividends based on the success of the corporation – as was the will of Congress and the federal government when the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA) established ASRC and the 11 other regional Alaska Native corporations.&#8221;
&#8220;ASRC Federal directly contributes to the self-determination of the North Slope Iñupiat through dividend payments and economic opportunity, contributing to a <a href="https://globalhealth.washington.edu/news/2017/05/09/alaska-dispatch-news-alaska-sees-most-dramatic-increases-life-expectancy-nation-new" target="_blank" rel="noopener">remarkable increase</a> in lifespan on Alaska&#8217;s North Slope,” she continued.
<div id="attachment_1045709" style="width: 1778px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1045709" class="size-full wp-image-1045709" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/winthrop-wine-cellar.jpg" alt="" width="1768" height="1258" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/winthrop-wine-cellar.jpg 1768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/winthrop-wine-cellar-300x213.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/winthrop-wine-cellar-810x576.jpg 810w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/winthrop-wine-cellar-768x546.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/winthrop-wine-cellar-1536x1093.jpg 1536w" sizes=" (max-width: 1768px) 100vw, 1768px" />Joseph Winthrop&#8217;s wine cellar</div>
<div id="attachment_1045713" style="width: 1492px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1045713" class="size-full wp-image-1045713" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/alaskan-village.jpg" alt="" width="1482" height="1094" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/alaskan-village.jpg 1482w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/alaskan-village-300x221.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/alaskan-village-780x576.jpg 780w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/alaskan-village-768x567.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1482px) 100vw, 1482px" />The largest Inupiat city</div>
For decades, politicians in both parties have said that Alaskan contracting was not advancing the goals that justified the program. That&#8217;s what then-Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said in 2010. In <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/national/2010/09/30/bethesda-consultant-made-millions-with-alaska-firm/e9187e20-cc34-11df-8eee-2e1a26a3708e/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">one case</a> from that time period, a Bethesda, Maryland, man was paid $15 million to run an Alaskan government contractor for three years, while its Alaskan Native owners received a total of $682,000 in dividends in 2009, or $305 each. The company won a contract to make military uniforms, which it manufactured in Puerto Rico instead of Alaska.
But efforts at reform have been blocked by Alaska Republican senators such as the now-deceased Ted Stevens, who for years chaired the powerful Appropriations Committee. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is a <a href="https://punchbowl.news/article/defense/murkowski-gavel/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">contender to chair</a> either the Senate Appropriations Committee or its defense subcommittee next Congress.
Now, if the Alaskan program meets its end, it&#8217;s likely to be through the abolition of the broader minority-contracting program. The Trump administration has made moves to rein in the DEI scheme after a black man, Walter Barnes, pleaded guilty to getting $500 million in USAID contracts by paying a USAID official <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/usaid-official-three-contractors-plead-guilty-to-half-billion-dollar-bribery-scheme" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$1 million in bribes</a>. The scheme worked because 8(a) empowers a government official to steer contracts to specific companies.
The increased scrutiny has placed Alaska&#8217;s senators, both Republicans, in the curious position of defending the DEI program as a whole.
Sen. Joni Ernst, chair of the Small Business Committee, which oversees the 8(a) program, asked agencies to pause sole-source contracts in order to get a handle on fraud. But Murkowski and Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/alaska-republicans-secretly-working-to-protect-fraud-plagued-dei-program" target="_blank" rel="noopener">secretly urged</a> the agencies to ignore that request, according to a letter previously obtained by The Daily Wire.
The letter highlighted that Pentagon officials enjoy taking advantage of the Alaskan law because although the competitive bidding process is designed to get the most qualified company and the best price, it is also a bureaucratic slog.
&#8220;We consistently hear from top Pentagon officials that the 8(a) Program provides flexibility and timeliness in procuring weapons systems that strengthen our country,&#8221; they wrote. &#8220;The program reduces administrative burden, shortens acquisition timelines, and avoids the delays and litigation risks that often accompany large-scale procurements.&#8221;
Murkowski and Sullivan did not respond when The Daily Wire asked for statistics about how many Alaskan Natives actually work at firms like Bowhead, another multibillion dollar defense contractor whose leadership consists virtually entirely of white males.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1026861" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/bowhead-scaled.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1535" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/bowhead-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/bowhead-300x180.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/bowhead-961x576.jpg 961w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/bowhead-768x460.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/bowhead-1536x921.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/bowhead-2048x1228.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></div>
In the 1980s, Congress passed laws allowing Native Americans to join Alaskan Natives as so-called &#8220;super 8(a)&#8217;s,&#8221; exempt from having to show that they are actually small, disadvantaged companies. Undercover journalist James O&#8217;Keefe caught an executive from one such firm, ATI Government Solutions, boasting that it received a $100 million contract and kept two-thirds while paying a big company, like Accenture, to do the actual work.
None of ATI&#8217;s executives was native, either. Members of the Susanville Indian Rancheria tribe, which owns part of ATI Government Solutions, were interviewed by O&#8217;Keefe&#8217;s outlet. &#8220;Here you have this millionaire making money off of us, and we&#8217;re here begging for help. All of the things that were created for us, we <a href="https://x.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1988770902243176767" target="_blank" rel="noopener">don&#8217;t benefit</a> from,&#8221; one tribe member said.
The American Accountability Foundation called for ending the 8(a) program, saying &#8220;it is currently not benefiting minority populations and is enriching D.C. elites.&#8221;

ASRC

How A Top Pentagon Contractor Enriches DC Insiders Using Law Intended To Help Eskimos

Alaska

Few organizations know more about leadership than the United States Army. Yet for years, the Army paid an outside consultant for instruction on the topic: A fly-by-night company co-founded by a Pakistani who sits on the board of an organization once linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Between 2021 and 2025, the Army Corps of Engineers shelled out $1.7 million across eight contracts to the vaguely named Nonprofit Empowerment Group. The group is actually a for-profit, bare-bones operation configured to scoop up federal contracts using woman-owned &#8220;set-asides.&#8221;
The company’s only listed employee is a former bank teller who hardly seemed to meet the government’s call for an academic institution to provide &#8220;<a href="https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/0161b3be328843d2abe84bbf29e1a446/view" target="_blank" rel="noopener">graduate level</a> instruction&#8221; on “leadership development skills.” Yet the so-called &#8220;Nonprofit Empowerment Group&#8221; <a href="https://negwebsitegov.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">advertised</a> a qualification that helped it gain access to the military: Its status as a &#8220;Disadvantaged Women Small Owned Business&#8221; [sic].
The saga raises questions about whether the government&#8217;s affirmative action contracting law, known as 8(a), not only wastes money by padding the wallets of middlemen, but could potentially undermine readiness and even risk foreign influence. The Trump administration canceled the Nonprofit Endowment Group&#8217;s contracts this week, the Daily Wire can exclusively report. A Pentagon official told The Daily Wire that the &#8220;absurd&#8221; and &#8220;sketchy&#8221; contracts were cancelled because they &#8220;don’t serve the national interest.&#8221;
The Nonprofit Empowerment Group&#8217;s only known employee, Angela Massey, declined to discuss the company’s work with The Daily Wire. According to Illinois corporation filings, Massey is the company&#8217;s president, while its secretary is Tariq H. Cheema.
At the same address in Lombard, Illinois, the pair once operated a nonprofit called the World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists. It was a reverse configuration — with Massey as secretary and Cheema as president, according to <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/800253036/2010_12_EO%2F80-0253036_990EZ_200912" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tax-exempt filings</a>.
The Nonprofit Empowerment Group cites seven clients on its <a href="http://negwebsitegov.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">website</a>, many of which appear to move money from Islamic nonprofits with ties to Cheema to the for-profit he co-founded.
That includes The Global Donors Forum, another group founded by Cheema; The American Refugee Committee, for which Cheema <a href="https://www.tariqcheema.us/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">serves</a> as executive director; The Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America, where Cheema also held the position of executive director; Roshni Homes, where Cheema served as an <a href="https://www.globalgiving.org/pfil/51653/projdoc.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">advisor</a>; and The Islamic Medical Association of North America (IMANA), on whose board <a href="https://imana.org/our-board/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cheema sits</a>.
The Muslim Brotherhood, a <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0357">designated terror organization</a>, in 1991 included the Islamic Medical Association on &#8220;a <a href="https://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/20/an-explanatory-memorandum-on-the-general.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">list</a> of our organizations and the organizations of our friends.&#8221; That document, laying out a plan for the radical Muslim group to take over North America, described how to bring about a &#8220;grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within.&#8221;
The Islamic Medical Association was established as a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/390944347_ENCYCLOPEDIA_ENTRY_Islamic_Society_of_North_America_ISNA" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8220;constituent organization&#8221;</a> of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which originated out of Illinois. The United States named ISNA an <a href="https://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2010/11/judges-ruling-on-islamic-groups-as-unindicted-co-conspirators-made-public-030922" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unindicted co-conspirator</a> in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation trial centered on Hamas fundraising.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1044009" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/muslim-brotherhood.jpg" alt="" width="990" height="312" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/muslim-brotherhood.jpg 990w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/muslim-brotherhood-300x95.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/muslim-brotherhood-768x242.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 990px) 100vw, 990px" /></div>
The World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists was <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/800253036" target="_blank" rel="noopener">established in 2009</a> to “build a culture of enduring engagement where Muslim donors collaborate with each other.&#8221; But it almost immediately went hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt, according to a nonprofit tax filing signed by Massey, who has not been listed on the forms in recent years.
Those filings said it hadn&#8217;t taken foreign donations, but Cheema, who declined to answer The Daily Wire’s questions, has said the group was operating abroad. In 2013, he <a href="https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/interviews/a-discussion-with-tariq-cheema-world-congress-of-muslim-philanthropists" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said,</a> &#8220;Our headquarters are in Chicago but we are just establishing a second headquarters in Doha, so much more of our work will in the future be handled from Qatar. I split my time between the two, and also my home country, Pakistan.&#8221;
&#8220;I went to medical school and led an essentially normal life until September 11, 2001. That was a wake up call for everybody. I was moved by the events and the reactions to them, but especially by a growing awareness that Muslim charities were being shut down more on the basis of suspicion than evidence of wrongdoing,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We also were aware of the enforcement of new regulations that were making giving more difficult.&#8221;
While Cheema <a href="https://www.tariqcheema.us" target="_blank" rel="noopener">describes</a> himself as &#8220;among the top 500 most influential Muslims shaping our world today,&#8221; the finances that the World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists reported to the United States government were in disarray. By 2016, the last year it filed a nonprofit disclosure, it had income of only $6,955 and $392,809 in debt.
But Cheema and Massey still had the Nonprofit Empowerment Group, which seemed to have been operating as a for-profit slush fund focused on Islamic issues and foreign affairs. The company&#8217;s website depicts it dealing with leaders from countries with mixed relationships with the United States, including Pakistan, China, Russia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.
One photo shows Turkey&#8217;s president, Recep Erdoğan, speaking in front of a banner that includes both the World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists and the Nonprofit Empowerment Group&#8217;s names. The website said Massey is also involved with the United Nations.
Soon after the World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists submitted its last tax filing, the for-profit company found a new source of revenue: repurposing their company to get government contracts for — well, anything.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1044011" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/nonprofit-empowerment-group.jpg" alt="" width="1896" height="1192" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/nonprofit-empowerment-group.jpg 1896w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/nonprofit-empowerment-group-300x189.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/nonprofit-empowerment-group-916x576.jpg 916w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/nonprofit-empowerment-group-768x483.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/02/nonprofit-empowerment-group-1536x966.jpg 1536w" sizes=" (max-width: 1896px) 100vw, 1896px" /></div>
According to its website<a href="https://archive.is/wip/TeVYN" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> NEGwebsitegov.com</a>, &#8220;Nonprofit Empowerment Group Inc specializes in providing administrative management and general management consulting services.&#8221;
In 2019, the company received a $10,000 contract for <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_N4523A18P1387_9700_-NONE-_-NONE-" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“writing courses”</a> from the Navy, due to the Navy setting aside the job for a “woman-owned business.” In 2022, it received its first contract for “leadership development program services” from the Army, also reserved for a woman-owned business.
As recently as June 2025 — this time without reserving the work for a minority — the Army gave the Nonprofit Empowerment Group its latest <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_W9127N25CA038_9700_-NONE-_-NONE-" target="_blank" rel="noopener">contract</a> for the &#8220;professional services of an academic institution regionally accredited by an agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.&#8221;
&#8220;The Contractor will be responsible for providing graduate level instruction&#8221; on &#8220;leadership development skills,&#8221; a <a href="https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/0161b3be328843d2abe84bbf29e1a446/view" target="_blank" rel="noopener">contracting document</a> said.
The Nonprofit Empowerment Group is not an academic institution: a more detailed version of the contracting requirements contains a loophole that also permits “an entity that has access to an accredited academic institution.” According to Massey’s LinkedIn <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/angela-massey-9971072a/">profile</a>, she worked as a bank teller, then founded the company while simultaneously working as a &#8220;middle market&#8221; banker. The profile describes her as &#8220;a staunch supporter of economic and social justice.&#8221;
The government subsidized that group through its contract for a leadership development course, paying it for activities the Army likely could have better organized itself — including introducing Army Corps of Engineers staff to members of Congress and other officials.
Assistant Secretary of the Army Adam Telle told The Daily Wire that the Trump administration has empowered the Pentagon to &#8220;cut ties&#8221; with groups like the Nonprofit Empowerment Group.
“There is no good reason that one part of the federal government should use taxpayer dollars to pay a third party in order to talk to another part of the federal government,&#8221; Assistant Secretary of the Army Adam Telle told The Daily Wire.
&#8220;We terminated these contracts because they are not only unnecessary, they also don’t serve the national interest, and they undermine the cohesion of the Army Civil Works mission. President Trump has empowered us to cut ties with organizations that aren’t aligned with our priorities, and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” he said.
The move comes as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/why-pete-hegseth-is-right-to-take-a-sledgehammer-to-the-8a-scam" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cracking down</a> on minority contracting, saying, “In many, many instances, these socially disadvantaged businesses don’t even do work. They take a 10%, 20%, sometimes 50% fee off the top, then pass the contract off to a giant consulting firm &#8230; For decades, this program, 8(a), has been a breeding ground for fraud.”
A <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/a-quarter-of-minority-contracting-firms-banned-after-refusing-anti-fraud-check" target="_blank" rel="noopener">quarter</a> of all minority contracting firms lost their certifications last month after failing to turn over records that would show whether they actually did the work, or simply subcontracted it to third parties.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-the-military-gave-a-homeless-lesbians-minority-contracting-firm-19-million" target="_blank" rel="noopener">How The Military Gave A Homeless Lesbian’s ‘Minority Contracting’ Firm $19 Million</a>

Joe Biden’s Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin

U.S. Army Paid Company Founded By Director Of Muslim Brotherhood-Linked Group For ‘Leadership’ Training

War Secretary Pete Hegseth <a href="https://x.com/rebekazeljko/status/2020998100072964167">gave a characteristically blunt answer</a> Monday when asked about the “choke points” in the defense production pipeline.
“You identified several policy changes the department was implementing to actually speed up and expedite some of the production,” a reporter said to Hegseth. “I was wondering, what are the specific choke points that you guys have encountered when it comes to regulations? What are the issues, what&#8217;s the hang-up at some of these production facilities, why have we seen delays on certain projects?”
“A lot of the hang-up has been us,” Hegseth acknowledged. “If we don&#8217;t look at ourselves first, the way we do business, we&#8217;ve been impossible to deal with. A bad customer who year after year changes our mind about what we want or what we don&#8217;t want, and then we make little, small technological changes, which makes it more difficult for them to produce what they need to produce on time.”
“So we have to fix our own house first,” he declared, “provide clarity, simplify the system, allow more people to access it, give that steady demand signal, which is what we&#8217;re doing with munitions. I encourage folks to look at the deals we&#8217;ve cut recently with Raytheon, with Boeing, with other companies, Lockheed, on Patriot missiles, on THAADs [Terminal High Altitude Area Defense systems], on other exquisite munitions. That&#8217;s groundbreaking stuff.&#8221;
“Our department&#8217;s never done that,” he continued. “The Deputy Secretary, Steve Feinberg, is a whiz kid on these things, putting these deals together. The companies are investing because they know we&#8217;re going to be buying into the future. That&#8217;s just good business. We haven&#8217;t operated that well that way before. And then things like requirements, there&#8217;s mazes of requirements that this department has traditionally put on different systems and platforms that are impossible to navigate and by the time you navigate them, you&#8217;re five years behind the actual technology.”
“So we&#8217;re going to companies and say, ‘Tell us what you can do based on the parameters of what kind of capabilities we&#8217;re looking for, say, in Indopaycom or Southcom or out in Europe, and let&#8217;s tailor it accordingly,’” he concluded.
The U.S. Army recently finalized a <a href="https://www.defensenews.com/land/2025/09/03/us-army-awards-lockheed-record-98-billion-missile-contract/">multibillion-dollar</a> deal with Lockheed Martin for the production of PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) interceptors. This month, Raytheon <a href="https://www.rtx.com/news/news-center/2026/02/04/rtxs-raytheon-partners-with-department-of-war-on-five-landmark-agreements-to-exp">signed</a> five framework agreements with the U.S. Department of War to significantly increase production capacity and accelerate deliveries of several high-demand systems.

US-POLITICS-TRUMP

‘We’ve Been Impossible To Deal With’: Hegseth Vows To Fix Pentagon’s ‘Bad Customer’ Behavior

Military

Pentagon

Pete Hegseth

Rhonda Valles is an aspiring California musician who, in between writing and performing songs, formed a company that purported to make clothes.
The company never produced a stitch. The federal government paid it $19 million.
The spectacle demonstrates the absurdity of 8(a) contracting law, which requires that that 5% of all federal government contracts be &#8220;set aside&#8221; for minority-, women-owned, and other &#8220;disadvantaged&#8221; businesses. The program — which Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said this month has resulted in $100 million contracts going out the door without competitive bidding <a href="https://x.com/SecWar/status/2012302240594170106">nearly every day</a> — has led to paydays for flagrant middlemen who use their disadvantaged status to win government contracts, only to subcontract the work to larger firms.
Valles registered a company called <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/search?hash=c5ea925ba77a354730a50d20bd0a7731">Romo Productions</a> with the Small Business Administration as a Self-Certified Small <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT_IDV_FA700014D0004_9700">Disadvantaged Business</a>, a Woman Owned Business, and a Hispanic American Owned Business. According to her <a href="https://guitarrhonda.com/about-me">music biography</a>, Valles&#8217;s father is &#8220;German/Irish/Spanish.&#8221;
That certification, which gave it a fast-track to government contracts, was the business: its <a href="https://www.romoproductions.com/home.html">website</a> dedicated more space to the Small Business Administration&#8217;s 8(a) logos than to its own name.
&#8220;ROMO Productions offers two advantages; quality, scaled production and woman owned small business. This means Government buyers can meet their small business set aside needs and receive well built products that are delivered on schedule,&#8221; a <a href="https://archive.is/wip/bSzJS">profile</a> said.
<blockquote>
<h1 class="md-end-block md-p">&#8216;I got this government contract, do you know anyone with a factory who can help me perform it?&#8217;</h1>
</blockquote>
Between 2009 and 2017, multiple military branches agreed to pay up to $72 million to the firm, ultimately shelling out just under $19 million to produce physical training outfits, federal spending records show. Some were awarded without competition as an &#8220;8(a) sole source,&#8221; while others were set aside for &#8220;small businesses.&#8221;
But Romo Productions never had the infrastructure to produce clothes. Brad Thompson, a white male to whom Valles subcontracted the work, recalls how she first approached him.
&#8220;She said &#8216;I got this government contract, do you know anyone with a factory who can help me perform it?&#8217; She was literally living in her car,&#8221; he told The Daily Wire. &#8220;I said &#8216;I can help you.'&#8221;
Thompson&#8217;s company, BT Apparel, was one of three factories that produced clothing for Romo Productions. Thompson sent the clothing to a space where Valles&#8217; band practiced, and she forwarded the packages on to the military, he said.
&#8220;She never owned a machine &#8230; I had 100 employees,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The whole 8(a) thing is a farce.&#8221;
During that time, Valles performed a song, &#8220;Token,&#8221; which includes the lyric &#8220;I need a token. Shut up boy, won&#8217;t you be my token&#8221;:​
<div class="md-htmlblock md-rawblock md-end-block" spellcheck="false">
​Government inspectors visited Thompson&#8217;s factory to ensure compliance with rules such as the Berry Amendment, which requires military products to be made in the United States. Thompson says he heard Valles giving the impression that she owned it. &#8220;I started to think there was something fraudulent going on,&#8221; he said.
He hired a lawyer to obtain a copy of the government contract using public records laws, and found that Valles was obligated to own the facilities that were performing the work, he said. The military had apparently never verified that she did.
Once Valles realized that Thompson was onto the scheme — a common occurrence in minority contracting, called a &#8220;pass-through&#8221; — she demanded he give her ownership of his business, which would make her more than a middle-woman: &#8220;Sell me 10% of your business for $1 and I&#8217;ll keep giving you work,&#8221; he recalled her saying.
The owners of the other two factories also began to suspect that Valles was simply siphoning government dollars as a middle-woman. Valles used legal threats and the prospect of withholding work to keep them as indentured servants.
She drafted a letter, intended for signature by Thompson, that said &#8220;I, Brad Thompson, have no further interest in obtaining pricing information from the USMC with respect to the above stated contract.&#8221;
Another document reviewed by The Daily Wire, with blank signature lines for the owners of the three factories, read: &#8220;We believe that what is best for Romo, is best for us. We do not now or ever want to make you think that we would try to take anything away from you.&#8221;
Thompson likened the move to extortion, and said when he refused to sign over ownership of his business, Valles abruptly pulled the work from his factory and even cast a curse on him. &#8220;Within three weeks it was all gone because I wouldn&#8217;t play ball,&#8221; he said.
Valles sued the second factory, Paradise Sewing, asking that it &#8220;be permanently restrained and enjoined from using misappropriated confidential information.&#8221; To support her case, she filed a contract that seemed to lay out her intent to commit a set-aside contracting pass-through scheme:
<blockquote>ROMO desires to retain sewing services of Paradise&#8230; to US Gov military apparel, from this day forward but has the following expectations:</blockquote>
Valles later filed a statement to the judge complaining about her own lawyer, because he &#8220;told me I was not going to win&#8221; and &#8220;that I &#8216;was behaving like a 3yr old.'&#8221; In 2018, a California appeals court <a href="https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/5b0b8dc6ce869d79ee0c9c4c">ordered</a> her to pay Paradise&#8217;s attorneys fees, and Romo Productions collapsed.
But it&#8217;s unclear that the federal government ever sanctioned it. Romo&#8217;s website says it has an &#8220;<a href="https://www.romoproductions.com/history.html">A+</a> Contract Past Performance Rating&#8221; and <a href="h%20A+%20Contract%20Past%20Performance%20Rating">received</a> a &#8220;certificate of appreciation&#8221; from the Marine Corps.
Valles told The Daily Wire via email that she is &#8220;more interested in the health of the planet, feminine energy (yin) and cooperative kindness rather than male dominated competitive evil war profiteers.&#8221;
&#8220;In a stupid male dominated world especially this world being a woman alone is a disadvantage,&#8221; she added, railing against &#8220;evil feudal lords evil Jews slavery is still here.&#8221;
She said she is &#8220;starting a coalition for women to run the planet. Peace and Light and Love-like the Orca Whales. Raise the frequency of the planet. Male energy is heavy and war like and long overdue for a reduction.&#8221;
A Department of War spokesman declined to discuss Romo Productions. But speaking on 8(a) contracts earlier this month, Hegseth noted that &#8220;In many, many instances, these socially disadvantaged businesses don&#8217;t even do work. They take a 10%, 20%, sometimes 50% fee off the top, then pass the contract off to a giant consulting firm.&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;re doing away with these pass-through schemes,&#8221; Hegseth said, vowing that contracts not benefiting &#8220;lethality&#8221; would simply be ended.
After the fallout, Thompson&#8217;s company looked into getting government contracts itself, but he found that bureaucrats seemed to knowingly write contracts that necessitated middlemen in order to meet their &#8220;small&#8221; and &#8220;disadvantaged&#8221; business quotas.
&#8220;It&#8217;s like &#8216;procure apparel with an Under Armour logo.&#8217; Obviously they should just get them from Under Armour,&#8221; he said.
The Romo Productions contract was for the procurement of New Balance clothes — something only New Balance, which is not a small business, had the license to produce. To convince New Balance to allow other factories to produce clothes with its logo, the company had to be paid a licensing fee that gave it the same profit as if the contract had gone directly to it, he said.
With Romo Productions gone, Valles now <a href="https://rhondav.com/bio">markets</a> herself as the &#8220;&#8216;Oz behind the curtain&#8217; of many of the industry’s top Made in USA/Berry Compliant tactical apparel brands from 2008-present.&#8221; She says she consults with other companies that want to do business with the military to help them with <a href="https://rhondav.com/services">&#8220;sourcing/compliance.&#8221;</a>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-just-ordered-beneficiaries-of-the-largest-dei-program-to-turn-over-all-financial-records">Trump Orders All Beneficiaries Of The Largest DEI Program To Turn Over Internal Financial Records</a>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/usaid-official-three-contractors-plead-guilty-to-half-billion-dollar-bribery-scheme">USAID Official, Three Contractors Plead Guilty To Half-Billion Dollar Bribery Scheme</a>
Editor&#8217;s Note: the views stated in this article are the author’s opinion. After publication, Ms. Valles contacted The Daily Wire to state that she disputes the accuracy of the article regarding her business operations, contracting history, and personal background, including any statement or implication that she was homeless or living in her car.”
</div>

Rhonda Valles

How The Military Gave A Homeless Lesbian’s ‘Minority Contracting’ Firm $19 Million

China&#8217;s foreign ministry announced sanctions on Friday targeting 10 individuals and 20 U.S. defense firms, including Boeing&#8217;s St. Louis branch, over arms sales to Taiwan.
A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said the United States strongly objected to the Chinese move, which freezes any assets the companies and individuals hold in China and bars domestic organizations and individuals from doing business with them.
Individuals on the Chinese list, including the founder of defense firm Anduril Industries and nine senior executives from the sanctioned firms, are also banned from entering China, it added.
Other companies targeted include Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation and L3Harris Maritime Services, and Boeing&#8217;s St. Louis branch, which focuses on defense work.
The Chinese action appears largely symbolic given China&#8217;s lack of dealings with U.S. defense firms, whereas it has been a major purchaser of Boeing civilian aircraft.
The move follows Washington&#8217;s announcement last week of $11.1 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, the largest ever U.S. weapons package for the island, drawing Beijing&#8217;s ire.
&#8220;The Taiwan issue is the core of China&#8217;s core interests and the first red line that cannot be crossed in China-U.S. relations,&#8221; a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said in a statement on Friday.
&#8220;Any provocative actions that cross the line on the Taiwan issue will be met with a strong response from China,&#8221; the statement said, urging the U.S. to cease &#8220;dangerous&#8221; efforts to arm the island.
China views democratically-governed Taiwan as part of its own territory, a claim Taipei rejects.
The U.S. is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, though such arms sales are a persistent source of friction with China.
The State Department spokesperson said this policy had &#8220;remained consistent across nine different U.S. administrations and contributes to the maintenance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.&#8221;
&#8220;We strongly object to Beijing’s efforts to retaliate against U.S. companies for their support of U.S. arms sales that support Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities,&#8221; the spokesperson said, while urging Beijing to cease military, diplomatic, and economic pressure against Taiwan and instead engage in meaningful dialogue with Taipei.
Boeing has been in talks to sell Chinese carriers up to 500 civilian jets, according to a report in September, which would represent a major breakthrough for the company in the world&#8217;s second-largest aviation market, where orders have stalled amid U.S.-China trade tensions.
(Reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Joe Bavier, Peter Graff and Alistair Bell)

The two sides clashed with missiles. trade war. Flag of the People’s Republic of China. Flag of the United States. Taiwan flag

China Hits U.S. Defense Firms With Sanctions Over Arms Sales To Taiwan

Communist China

Global Politics

Taiwan

World

A heavily-redacted Epstein document dump revives questions about his associates, including former President Bill Clinton; the United States wallops ISIS targets in Syria while the Venezuelan oil blockade continues; and Turning Point USA&#8217;s AmericaFest wraps up with fireworks.
It’s Monday, December 22, 2025, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. Today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below, and the video version can be seen on <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mrn-251222-member-exclusive?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+Show+Episodes+Carousel">The Daily Wire</a>:
<iframe style="width: 100%; max-width: 660px; overflow: hidden; border-radius: 10px;" src="https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/epstein-files-firestorm-u-s-retaliation-strikes-isis/id1576594336?i=1000742295192" height="175" frameborder="0" sandbox="allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"></iframe>
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Epstein Files Released</h2>
The Justice Department has begun publishing thousands of pages of material tied to its investigations of Jeffrey Epstein. But the rollout has sparked immediate controversy with claims of heavy redactions and missing files. Because of the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed last month, the DOJ released an initial batch of over 13,000 files. These include investigative materials, grand jury transcripts from cases adjudicated in the early 2000s, police reports, flight logs, handwritten phone messages, and dozens of photographs. Though some of the material is new, none of it is blockbuster news. There are still hundreds of thousands of records under review that will be released on a rolling basis in the coming weeks, however.
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">U.S. Hits ISIS</h2>
President Trump has followed through on his promise to avenge three Americans killed in Syria last week, carrying out dozens of strikes against ISIS in Syria. On Friday, the U.S. military, with some help from Jordan, hit 70+ ISIS targets across Syria. An early report from a Syria monitoring group said that at least five ISIS terrorists were killed. Most of the destruction was of ISIS infrastructure, including munitions, supplies, and hideouts. War Secretary Pete Hegseth tamped down fears that this could lead to a wider conflict. Hegseth <a href="https://x.com/SecWar/status/2002140737060692098">said</a>, “This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance. The United States of America, under President Trump’s leadership, will never hesitate and never relent to defend our people.”
<h2 style="text-align: center;">TPUSA’s AmFest Wraps Up</h2>
Turning Point USA’s big annual conference, AmericaFest, had more eyes than ever on it this year as organizers set out to honor its founder Charlie Kirk and give the stage to the most influential voices in the conservative movement. The event wrapped with some surprises–the major one coming on Sunday when Ericka Kirk walked rapper Nicki Minaj out on the main stage to talk about her respect for President Trump. The event was also full of fiery speeches that generated many headlines across the media. But while the media and the internet were full of controversy, the feeling on the floor of the conference felt communal and high-energy, according to Daily Wire reporters at the event.

MRN_251222_V2 (1)

Morning Brief: Epstein Files Released, U.S. Hits ISIS In Syria, And AmFest Comes To A Close

AMFEST

Department of Justice

Jeffrey Epstein

Morning Wire

Syria

Turning Point USA

The Department of War has escalated a review of Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly to an “official Command Investigation.”
“The Office of the Secretary of War, in conjunction with the Department of War&#8217;s Office of the General Counsel, is escalating the preliminary review of Captain Mark Kelly, USN (Ret.), to an official Command Investigation. Retired Captain Kelly is currently under investigation for serious allegations of misconduct. Further official comments will be limited to preserve the integrity of the proceedings,” a department official told The Daily Wire.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
NEW: <a href="https://twitter.com/DeptofWar?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DeptofWar</a> official tells <a href="https://twitter.com/realDailyWire?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@realDailyWire</a> that DOW is escalating its preliminary review of Senator Mark Kelly to an “official Command Investigation.”
“Retired Captain Kelly is currently under investigation for serious allegations of misconduct,” official says. “Further…
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) <a href="https://twitter.com/MaryMargOlohan/status/2000709725726347348?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 15, 2025</a></blockquote>
Last week, the U.S. Navy sent a report to War Secretary Pete Hegseth on a review of Kelly’s actions warning military members against following “illegal orders.” The Office of General Counsel for the War Department is providing advice and legal review of the investigation into Kelly.
The department <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/war-department-reviewing-serious-allegations-against-sen-mark-kelly-after-dem-military-message">initiated</a> a review of Kelly, a U.S. Navy combat veteran and retired astronaut, in November after the senator joined five other Democratic lawmakers in a video urging military members to disobey “illegal orders.” The Arizona Democrat is under consideration to be recalled to active duty to undergo “court-martial proceedings or administrative measures.”
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“The Department of War reminds all individuals that military retirees remain subject to the [Uniform Code of Military Justice] for applicable offenses, and federal laws such as 18 U.S.C. § 2387 prohibit actions intended to interfere with the loyalty, morale, or good order and discipline of the armed forces. Any violations will be addressed through appropriate legal channels,” the department said in a statement at the time.
At the time of the video, Hegseth denounced it in a <a href="https://x.com/PeteHegseth/status/1993008532187148582">post</a> on X, saying that message put out by the “seditious six” lawmakers is “despicable, reckless, and false.”
“Encouraging our warriors to ignore the orders of their Commanders undermines every aspect of ‘good order and discipline.’ Their foolish screed sows doubt and confusion — which only puts our warriors in danger,” said Hegseth.

Mark Kelly

Hegseth’s War Department Escalates Review Of Mark Kelly Over ‘Seditious Six’ Video

Congress

U.S.

Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton suggested Sunday that the Trump administration might soon begin to “murder” Americans.
Moulton, who is running for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, made the radical claim during an appearance on CNN in which he suggested that the administration’s actions against narcoterrorists in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean may be replicated against Americans.
“The President of the United States and his secretary of Defense are conducting murder on the high seas. They&#8217;re committing murder and Americans should care,” <a href="https://x.com/RNCResearch/status/1997768199379505464">said</a> Moulton. “None of us like drug traffickers, but we have laws that say that drug traffickers don&#8217;t get summarily executed, and if it&#8217;s happening off the coast of America with people that we don&#8217;t know, just give it time before Donald Trump starts doing the same kind of thing to people we do know right here at home.”
The administration has declared major drug cartels in South America as terror groups, and positioned roughly 15,000 troops in the Caribbean Sea to combat narcoterrorists trafficking fentanyl and other deadly drugs into the United States. The U.S. military has destroyed roughly two dozen boats and submarines in international waters that the administration said were trafficking illicit drugs.
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Democrats ramped up criticisms of the Trump administration’s war on drugs after a report from The Washington Post last month claimed that War Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a “kill them all” order carried out against survivors of a destroyed drug-running vessel.
Top military officials have contested the report. Adm. Mitch Bradley said in a closed-door hearing in Congress last week that Hegseth never gave such an order. In one September incident that has become the basis for Democratic claims of war crimes, Bradley made the call to send a follow-up strike against a vessel that he deemed was still a threat.
Democrats have pushed to have the classified video of the follow-up strike made public. Sen. Tom Cotton, who has seen the video, appeared on NBC News on Sunday and said he had “no problem” with releasing it as long as doing so does not risk national security.
“I will say that the [Department of War] may have valid concerns about revealing what we know about tactics and techniques that these cartels are using or about our sources or methods,” <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tom-cotton-has-no-problem-with-releasing-video-of-drug-boat-double-tap">said</a> Cotton. “I would trust Secretary Hegseth and his team to make the decision about whether they can declassify and release the video. But again, there’s nothing remarkable on that video in my opinion.”

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