The Department of Treasury says they have opened an investigation into accusations that one of their current employees inappropriately awarded a lucrative government contract to a company she had personal ties with, while working for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
Iris Cooper is a senior procurement executive at the Department of Treasury, but just last year she was an executive director in the VA’s Office of Acquisition Operations.
It was during her employment at the VA that the government’s top watchdog says she inappropriately awarded a contract worth more than $15 million to Tridec Technologies LLC, a company owned by "a personal friend."
The investigation into Cooper’s actions lasted for two years and began well before she was hired by the Department of Treasury, but officials at the department tell the Washington Free Beacon they were not informed of the investigation when they hired Cooper at the beginning of this year.
"Treasury was not aware of the matter referenced in the report before Ms. Cooper was hired," the official said.
The official did not confirm if Cooper would face immediate repercussion, but said the department’s inspector general was "in possession of the report" and they would "be discussing any appropriate next steps with the inspector general."
New emails obtained by the Free Beacon suggest that process is already underway.
In an email exchange from Friday, Dec. 12, Richard Delmar, counsel to the Inspector General at Department of the Treasury, told a staffer on the House Veteran Affairs Oversight Subcommittee that he planned to bring the report directly to the department’s Inspector General.
Roughly an hour later, Delmar emailed the staffer to say the IG saw the report and planned to investigate Cooper’s involvement.
"I’ve discussed this with Inspector General Thorson. We will pursue this within the Department immediately," Delmar wrote. "Thank you again for referring it to us."
In the original report, released earlier this week, the VA’s Inspector General found that Cooper and another employee "preselected" the company for contracts and the three they received since 2009 were all "improperly awarded on a sole-source basis to Tridec."
"We substantiated the allegations that Ms. Cooper and Ms. McCutcheon steered the contract for the [Virtual Office of Acquisition] requirement to Tridec and that Ms. Cooper had a personal relationship with individuals associated with Tridec. Further, we found that as the Competition Advocate, Ms. Cooper allowed the requirement, which thus far was valued at more than $15 million, to be broken down into units under $5 million to ensure the requirement could be awarded sole-source to Tridec," the report says.
Investigators say Cooper used her position to ensure there was "no competition" in awarding the first contract. As result, "the [Technical Acquisition Center] believed that no entity other than Tridec could do the work, and there was no assurance of price reasonableness" so the VA agreed to pay "whatever Tridec proposed."
Tridec was a "new company with no past performance," and the report notes, "it is questionable whether [Tridec] would have been awarded the contract," even if appropriate requirements were originally met.
Each contract was initially "at or below" a $5 million threshold that’s legally established for sole-source contracts, but the report notes that the first contract was "modified," increasing the award to more than $8 million.
Tridec received $15.5 million dollars in contracts, and on the day the IG’s report was released the VA reportedly awarded the company another no-bid contract for $9.2 million.
Cooper’s departure from the VA was announced in February, according to a report in the Financial Times, and when it was announced a spokesperson for the agency praised Cooper for her work and years of service.
The VA did not respond to request for comment at press time.