Gary Farber's home blog is Amygdala.
Darleen Druyun is talking. It's likely so is Michael M. Sears. Who are they? See here, here, and here, for starters, or just read for context.Darleen A. Druyun, a former top Air Force official who later joined, and was fired, from Boeing, is meeting with federal prosecutors to tell them all she knows about possible misconduct at the company, the nation's second-largest military contractor behind Lockheed.Once one of the toughest negotiators at the Pentagon, with a reputation so fierce she was nicknamed the Dragon Lady, Ms. Druyun had held sway for years over billions of dollars in contracts for fighter jets, cargo planes and other hardware. But after leaving the Air Force in 2002 to work at Boeing, she was found to have illegally negotiated her Boeing job contract while still working at the Pentagon.
Now, disgraced and facing up to five years in jail, Ms. Druyun is cooperating with a number of investigations in order to win a reduced sentence. Already, one former Boeing executive, Michael M. Sears, once its chief financial officer, has been identified in court as having conspired with Ms. Druyun in her job negotiations, and many are wondering how much further Ms. Druyun's finger pointing will go.
Mr. Sears was fired by Boeing late last year, along with Ms. Druyun, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy in April.Ronald Reagan got a lot of mileage out of telling allegorical tall tales, based in fact, but extravagantly exaggerated to imply such cases were representative of a significant number of those in need, of thefts of public funds by "welfare queens" and stating or implying that this had a significant effect upon the welfare system and budget, playing to people's prejudices (and racism, despite the fact that the majority of people on welfare, then and now, were/are "white")."She knows where the bodies are buried," said Eric Miller, senior defense investigator for the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington nonprofit group that studies military procurement issues. "Federal investigators are very interested in what she has to say. She supervised virtually every procurement contract and she would have knowledge of any wrongdoing."
Mr. Sears has not been charged with a crime. But legal observers close to the case say that Mr. Sears probably has little choice but to cooperate with prosecutors to avoid going to prison. Lawyers for Mr. Sears did not respond to telephone calls for comment.[...]
In addition, Congressional investigators are poised to begin a broader inquiry into the "revolving door" between the Pentagon and its contractors, including Boeing. In Ms. Druyun's case, the relationship was so cozy that she appeared to act almost as a Boeing agent inside the Air Force, passing along proprietary data from Airbus, which was bidding against Boeing for a $20 billion contract for aerial refueling tankers.
She also helped arrange for Boeing to hire her daughter, and later sold her Northern Virginia home for a quick profit to a Boeing lawyer working on the tanker deal.
Congressional investigators are also looking into whether the Air Force tailored the bidding specifications, called the Operational Requirements Document, for the tanker jet contract to benefit Boeing at the expense of the pilots who would fly the jets. Investigators are looking into whether other Air Force officials besides Ms. Druyun may have committed crimes, and whether Boeing violated federal procurement laws.
"Everyone is trying to find out how high any misconduct may have reached," said Pablo Carrillo, a staff member of the Senate Commerce Committee, whose chairman, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, has led the charge against Boeing.
How much more outrageous is it that billions of taxpayer dollars are stolen in single deals by corporate thieves and government employees who are supported by Congressional cronies who take bribes, er, campaign contributions, as pay-offs?
That tens, and possibly hundreds, of billions of hard-earned, taxpayer-originated, sweat-of-the-brow, dollars, go to these criminals who hurt our war effort?
Not to mention such minor details as that this does more harm to national defense, by taking money away from necessary spending, than any foreign enemy.
It's our money. It's our defense. Thieves in the boardroom steal more, and hurt our national interest more, than any other known variety. They are muggers of nations.
And we all suffer the loss.
Where is our Truman Committee?
Read The Rest Scale: 3.5 out of 5.
Let's have a bit of precision here. The excessive costs of the tanker leasing deal were not going to go to "these criminals [Sears and Drunyun]" but rather to Boeing. Where their motives lay is in their positions in the Boeing corporate ladder and compensation packages. I have yet to see what Sears or Druyun might have got out of this deal personally, but your hyperbole isn't correct. Now if Boeing is going to be indicted for criminal conduct on a personal basis you might have a point there, but you didn't specify the difference between corporate conduct and personal malfeasance. But best I've read, Boeing is not going to be criminally indicted and forced to defend its corporate conduct. In fact, it is possibly going to supply the tankers which USAF is going to buy instead of lease, as there are precisely two suppliers of such items today.
So read your citations again, and consider that the issue is in the Pentagon's methods of doing these deals and the personnel which negotiate them. Ethics regs which should have prevented Drunyun from getting employed at a major defense contractor were not enforced and nobody blew the whistle until it became a matter of Congressional inquiry. To a large extent, the corporation here has done pretty much what the Pentagon apparently wished it to do, motivated largely by the Pentagon's own desire to bypass its own internal procurement regulations by structuring the deal as a lease.
And before anyone breaks out the tar and feathers for Darleen Druyun, they might want to read this article by James Fallows which praises Druyun's key role in the Joint Strike Fighter procurement process.