Maxine Waters bill to eliminate background checks for contractors raises serious questions.

Fairfax, Va. – House Democrats introduced a bill to block forms of federal grants from going to employers that conduct criminal background checks, or even “inquire” about the criminal history of an applicant. Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning issued the following statement in reaction to this misguided measure:

“Apparently stupidity runs so rampant on the Democratic side of the aisle in the House of Representatives that Maxine Waters and David Trone have introduced legislation that would end federal grants given to companies that conduct criminal background checks on their employees.  Under this measure, every defense contractor who conducts background checks would have their contracts stripped and if they aren’t currently conducting criminal background checks, then they should have their government contracts taken away for incompetence.

“What could go wrong?  A few things come to mind. We could have defense secrets stolen, money syphoned from the U.S. mint, and Drug Enforcement Agency contractors moonlighting for drug cartels.

“While Trone can be forgiven for not knowing recent House of Representatives history, Waters cannot.  In 2017, an investigation came to a head focused on a foreign network of Information Technology specialists hired by the geniuses in the Democratic Party leadership in the House of Representatives. Then House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving, laid out the concerns in a Feb. 3, 2017 letter to the Committee overseeing House operations writing,

“Based upon the evidence gathered to this point, we have concluded the employees are an ongoing and serious risk to the House of Representatives, possibly threatening the integrity of our information systems and thereby members’ capacity to serve constituents…This could have resulted in Member data being accessed by someone unknown and unauthorized by the offices.”

“While Irving’s letter seriously understated the seriousness of the situation as House Member email correspondence had been breached subjecting everything from policy discussions to personnel matters to scrutiny by foreign spymasters, it would seem at least obvious that background checks for anyone who touches any government information that comes over a computer should be mandatory for security purposes.

“But then again, Representatives Waters and Trone can’t be expected to worry about little things like embezzlement and national security interests when the quest for equity is afoot.  And since Trone came from the private sector as the multi-millionaire owner of the retail chain Total Wine and More, I’m certain that his corporate accounting team is not just hired off the street without determining if they have a history of stealing from their previous employers, even if he is willing to accept petty theft at his cash registers due to unwise hiring practices.

“But that is his business, when it comes to the people’s business, taxpayers have a right to expect that contractors and their employees are not proven liars, thieves or committers of hate crimes. I guess rather than an official background check, the government could just rely upon the woke Twitter mob to vet prospective employees based upon innuendo rather than fact.

“Somehow that thought doesn’t soothe me.”

For media availability contact Catherine Mortensen at 703-478-4643 or cmortensen@getliberty.org.