Trump's Sons and the $40 Million Ebola Contract Nobody Can Explain

Photo: Executive Office of the President / Public domain

There is a number that does not make sense. Forty million dollars. That is the size of the contract the Trump administration gave out for Ebola work. And the company that got it has ties to the president's sons. Nobody can explain why they got it. Nobody can explain what they did to earn it. And nobody in the administration will answer the question.

Ebola is not a metaphor. It is a virus that kills people in the most terrible way imaginable. The work of fighting it is done by doctors, nurses, and public health workers in some of the poorest and most dangerous places on earth. It is not a branding opportunity. It is not a family business. And it is certainly not a $40 million gift to the children of the president.

Here is what we know. The contract was awarded for work related to Ebola. The company that received it has connections to Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. The administration has not explained how the company was chosen. It has not explained what qualifications it had. It has not explained why other companies, with actual experience in global health, were passed over. The questions are simple. The silence is total.

This is the pattern. The Trump family has treated the federal government like a family business since the first day of the first term. The presidency is a platform. The contracts are the payoff. The taxpayers are the ones who pay. And every time someone asks a question, the answer is the same: nothing to see here, move along, it is a witch hunt.

But $40 million is not nothing. It is public money. It is the money of every person who pays taxes in this country. It belongs to the people, and the people have a right to know where it went, and why, and who decided. A contract for Ebola work should go to the people who do Ebola work. That is not a radical idea. That is the most basic standard of government there is.

So what happens now? Congress can ask. The oversight committees can demand the records. The company can explain itself. The administration can come clean. Or it can keep stonewalling, and the questions will keep coming, because $40 million does not disappear. It leaves a paper trail. And a paper trail leads somewhere.

The Ebola contract is not the biggest scandal of this administration. It is not the most corrupt thing this family has done. But it is the clearest. A virus that kills children. A contract worth $40 million. A company tied to the president's sons. And nobody can explain why. That is not a coincidence. That is corruption, out in the open, daring you to do something about it.

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