Jeb Bush and the Making of a $236 Million Federal Contract
Carnival Cruise Lines' Sensation, foreground, passes by its sistership Ecstasy at the Port of Miami in this undated file photo. On Saturday, September 3, 2005 Carnival announced that Sensation, Ecstasy and the Holiday, another Carnival ship, would be pulled from regular cruise service for six months and chartered to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide temporary housing for Hurricane Katrina victims. The Ecstasy and Sensation are to base in Galveston, Texas, while Holiday is to port in Mobile, Alabama.
Photographer: Andy Newman Source: Carnival Cruise Lines/HO via Bloomberg NewsRepublican donor Ric Cooper had a straight line to Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and days after Hurricane Katrina used the access to help secure a $236 million deal that Democrats later called a “boondoggle contract,” according to a trove of e-mails released last week by the Democratic opposition research group American Bridge.
The chummy exchange began with a previously unreported direct appeal from Cooper on behalf of Carnival Cruise Line two days after Katrina smashed into the Gulf Coast. “None of us have any idea how to reach out to FEMA or whoever is appropriate,” wrote Cooper in an Aug. 31, 2005, e-mail to Bush. “I decided to do my usual 'I'll give Jeb a heads-up.'” The Miami-based company wanted a federal contract for “two or three” of their ships to be used in the response effort, he wrote.