New reporting reveals that Carrie Buck has close ties to a defense contractor “who admits he colluded to defraud the U.S. government,” a move that “wastes taxpayer money [and] compromises the security of troops.”
Despite the contractor admitting he plotted to rig bids for military contracts, Buck still gladly accepted a maxed-out, $7,000 campaign donation from him. To top it off, Buck also paraded around Boulder City in a truck blatantly branded with the contractor’s logo.
When asked about the controversial defense contractor, Buck “did not respond to requests for comment.”
DCCC Spokesperson Lindsay Reilly:
“If Carrie Buck really cared about Southern Nevadans, she’d return the thousands of dollars she accepted from a known conman who put our troops in harm’s way and stole from taxpayers.”
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Nevada Current: Buck hitches wagon to defense contractor who schemed to defraud taxpayers
- When Nevada State Senator and Republican congressional candidate Carrie Buck paraded around Boulder City on the Fourth of July, it was on a truck belonging to a Nevada-based defense contractor who admits he colluded to defraud the U.S. government.
- John Buscema, the owner of S.A.F.E. Structure, a Nevada company, and USA Manufacturing, a Florida corporation, admitted in 2024 that his companies plotted from 2014 through 2023 with another defense contractor to rig bids for military contracts. Buscema agreed last year to pay a $1 million settlement to resolve the government’s False Claims Act suit.
- Buscema contributed $7,000, the maximum allowed for an individual, to Buck’s campaign for Congress. She’s challenging Rep. Dina Titus, a Democrat, in Nevada’s Congressional District 1.
- Buscema admitted to assisting in bid rigging by using his companies to make more than 100 bids for contracts he had no intention of winning, according to the settlement agreement.
- Buscema also paid other vendors to submit some 60 false bids so that his companies would win the contracts.
- “As evidenced in this settlement agreement, these contractors gamed the system to line their own pockets. They manipulated and undermined the fair and open bidding process designed to save our military – and taxpayers – money,” U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy of Massachusetts said in a news release last year. “Contractors should be scrupulous in dealing with the government, not coordinating with each other to pad their bottom line. When defense contractors collude, rather than compete, they violate the law and the public’s trust.”
- Cheating the Dept. of Defense not only wastes taxpayer money, but also compromises the security of troops by supplying the government with inferior or defective weapons. It also deprives the military of revenue that could be used to support the troops.
- [Buck] and her campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
- “This is the height of hypocrisy,” Titus’ campaign spokesman Dick Cooper said in a statement. “She should return the money, just like John Buscema had to pay $1 million to settle the charges against him by the Department of Justice.”
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