DHS squandering tax dollars on high end office chairs amid FEMA cuts and appalling

[Tanuki]

conditions in detainee camps. Cui bono? Someone's making out like a bandit.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/as-trump-looted-fema-and-the-military-for-his-border-policies-dhs-bought-high-end-chairs-with-taxpayer-funds?ref=home

.. "But while administration officials have defended the diversion of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars from airport-security operations, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) disaster-relief fund, and the U.S. Coast Guard, DHS has spent nearly $120 million of its funding… on office furniture.
...
According to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement cost-per-night estimate, the Trump administration’s furniture expenditure for the department would have been enough to run the agency’s family-detention facility in Dilley, Texas, at full capacity for nearly half a year. It’s also almost enough to repay FEMA for $155 million in federal disaster aid that was diverted to ICE last month. (Just in time for hurricane season.)

The office-furniture expenditures, sorted by code in the Federal Procurement Data System Product and Service Codes Manual, include filing cabinets, dry-erase boards, desks, and many, many chairs—and does not include cots, bed frames, or mattresses destined for use by undocumented immigrants in detention centers.
.....
A review of purchase descriptions reveal that a surprisingly large percentage of the department’s furniture outlays rest—recline?—on an expensive taste in office chairs. Herman Miller, the luxury furniture maker whose Aeron chair is featured in the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection, is the most frequent recipient of DHS orders for office furniture.

In July, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) placed an order to the company for $515,976.09 for office furniture intended for its service center in Laguna Niguel, California. In May, the agency spent $786,409.61 on Herman Miller furniture for an application support center in nearby Tustin. One month before that, USCIS spent $803,095.54 for furniture, also from Herman Miller, for an office in Jackson, Mississippi.

[tanyev]

1. But no toothbrushes or soap for the detainees.