As the fallout of the raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints continues with the start of the child custody hearings of the 400+ children rescued from the Central Texas ranch owned by FLDS founder, Warren Jeffs, a new twist to the plot has emerged.
There were companies tied to Warren Jeffs that manufactured airplane parts. The Pentagon had given the contracts to those companies. In short, the Pentagon bought parts from those contractors. When Jeffs appeared on the FBI’s “Most-Wanted List,” the Pentagon continued buying airplane parts from those companies.
Over $1.7 million dollars has been paid to those companies in defense contracts over the last ten years. As a result, at least thousands ended up in the hands of Warren Jeffs and his organization. Jeffs is currently serving time after being convicted back in 2007 for being an accomplice to rape. He is about to face additional charges in Arizona.
Former sect member Richard Holm explained that he helped build Western Precision, one of the companies that have a contract with the Pentagon. Western Precision, Utah Tool, and NewEra Manufacturing now operate under one umbrella company known as NewEra Manufacturing.
On an interesting note, the money used to build that one ranch recently raided in Eldorado, Texas, came from the Pentagon through the contracts with such businesses like Western Precision.
However, the Pentagon emphasizes that nothing illegal happened.
Geoff Morrell, spokesman for the Pentagon, said that contracts are given out on who is effective of meeting supply and demand at a reasonable cost to US taxpayers.
He added: “We do not consider religious affiliation or marital status when selecting vendors, but illegal activity is certainly cause for termination of a contract and perhaps even debarment, which could prevent a contractor from doing business with department ever again.”
In short, the Pentagon and the Department of Defense say that they were abiding by the law and that nothing wrong was done. But, there will be plenty of fallout and backlash that will come out of this twist.
To easily sum things up, this is what happened:
US taxpayers > US Government > Defense Budget (Pentagon) > Western Precision > FLDS Church > Warren Jeffs
Indirectly, Jeffs’ compound was built from money that came from Western Precision, via a contract with the Pentagon, which the funding came from US taxpayers. By a number of proxies and degrees, Jeffs’ compound was financed with the money from US taxpayers.
On an interesting note, notice the six degrees of separation?
Ever play the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon?” This is the “Six Degrees of Warren Jeffs.”