Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute and the investigative journalist who broke the Clinton Cash corruption story, has uncovered what may be one of the most brazen grifts operating inside the Capital Beltway. His new reporting exposes deep cronyism and corruption inside the Small Business Administration's 8(a) Business Development Program, where DEI-driven preferences opened the door for fraudsters to siphon off lucrative no-bid federal contracts.
Instead of supporting legitimate small business development, the 8(a) program has been a massive pipeline for pass-through entities that collect bidless contracts on silver platters while quietly outsourcing the real work to major consulting firms.
The result: Merit-based competition gets sidelined, and tens of billions in taxpayer dollars flow through shell operators, allowing the corrupt Beltway economy of parasites to loot taxpayers. The looting went into hyperdrive during the Biden-Harris regime years.
Remember the 'Gold Bars' corruption story with the EPA? - Well, this 8(a) corruption turns out to be very similar: loot taxpayers as much as possible with Biden in the White House, who had no idea what was happening.
Schweizer has built a career exposing this kind of institutional rot, and the developments in the news cycle so far suggest the Trump administration is preparing to slam down the accountability hammer and smash parasites across the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia.
"For years, DC insiders have exploited a federal DEI contracting program that provides windfalls to beltway elites. This open secret isn't about helping the downtrodden; it's about bagging no-bid paydays. The SBA's 8(a) program is long overdue for reform," Schweizer began the X thread post on Tuesday night, as well as publishing a report on The Drill Down.
He pointed out that his team "followed the money and found that the SBA's '8(a) contracting program' contains stunning levels of cronyism and corruption," adding, "Corps win government contracts not due to merit but because they check the right DEI boxes. ZERO accountability!"
How the 8(a) scam works:
It's one thing to catch fraud in Excel spreadsheets. It's another thing to see it happening in the real world. As Schweizer's team highlighted, undercover footage from O'Keefe Media Group showed 8(a) operators openly admitting to the racket...
"The floodgates opened wider when the Biden administration tripled contracting quotas for race-based awards. Money was even diverted away from veteran-owned businesses. Identity first, performance second — and the costs exploded," Schweizer emphasized.
What makes the 8(a) scandal so critical is that no corner of the federal contracting world has been more gamed than the 8(a).
The program may have begun with good intentions, but the road to hell really is paved with them. In practice, it's morphed into an arbitrary tollgate that every major contracting firm knows how to subvert through pass-through entities.
Everyone in the DC consulting world understands how the game works: set up a compliant 8(a) "small business," win the no-bid award, and let the big consulting firms do all the work.
These DEI mandates have proven to make the government dysfunctional. It's more hoops, more paperwork, more meaningless certifications, more administrative drag, and ultimately a worse product. Fraud is one thing. But the DEI overlay has turned the DC into a bloated and corrupt hellhole that ultimately sticks taxpayers with the inflated bill.
Schweizer ends the thread with a hint that an enforcement phase may be approaching, and that the days of operating this DEI scam in the shadows of the DC beltway could be numbered.
Earlier this month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent addressed the 8(a) fraud issue, stating, "Treasury will not tolerate the fraudulent misuse of federal contracting programs. These initiatives must benefit legitimate small businesses that deliver measurable value to the government and the public."
Schweizer hints at the needed reforms:
Congress needs to investigate the program and subpoena ALL contractors suspected of fraud
Every agency that has 8(a) contracts needs to audit those contracts (start with the Pentagon!)
The rules need to be rewritten to get rid of DEI focus, level the playing field, and close the “pass-through” loopholes
Bessent's comments are a clear signal that major reforms aimed at shutting down the Beltway parasites who've been gaming the 8(a) program through toxic DEI loopholes near.
Federalist senior contributor Benjamin Weingarten chimed in on X, saying, "The more you look at the DEI Industrial Complex, the more you realize it’s not just a destroyer of civil rights masquerading as a protector of them, but a massive multibillion dollar grift."
Weingarten ended with, "The rampant fraudulence and corruption under guise of virtue and justice is deplorable."
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