Skip to main content

Trump pick for Air Force boss frustrated auditors

Trump pick for Air Force boss frustrated auditors with lucrative, murky consulting for nuclear weapons labs

Patrick Malone and R. Jeffrey Smith
Center for Public IntegrityFebruary 28, 2017

A federal inspector contacted the Energy Department fraud hotline a few years back to flag irregularities in contracts that several nuclear weapons laboratories had signed with a former New Mexico Congresswoman whom President Trump has designated to become the new Air Force Secretary.

A far-reaching probe ensued in Washington after the hotline contact, which ended in a demand that the weapons labs give back nearly a half-million dollars to the government. Wilson has said she did not do anything wrong in trading on her Washington experience to become a “strategic adviser” to the labs.

But internal Energy Department documents newly obtained by the Center for Public Integrity make clear that some of the contracting irregularities stemmed from demands specifically made by Wilson in her negotiations with the labs.

****

As Charlie McMillan of LANS is fond of saying: "Follow the money!"

I wonder, did Charlie sign the "consulting" checks for Heather Wilson?

Comments

Anonymous said…
Why are you shouting?
Anonymous said…
Font challenged.
Anonymous said…
Heather Wilson was a consultant for Sandia (Lockheed-Martin), not LANL.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye/wp/2015/08/24/after-allegations-that-it-lobbied-with-federal-money-to-block-competition-lockheed-martin-agrees-to-pay-almost-5-million/?utm_term=.5151da409b90
Anonymous said…
So she is crooked like most of the people in DC? Isn't that a job requirement? Whoops, goes against draining the swamp.
Anonymous said…
Heather Wilson was a consultant for Sandia (Lockheed-Martin), not LANL.

March 1, 2017 at 11:07 AM


Sorry, Charlie, but read the posted article. There are hundreds of pages of investigators' field notes referenced in the article, most of which are related to alleged wrongdoings with LANL. While it may be correct that Sandia has settled their part of the case, that was not the main point of the story.
Anonymous said…
Heather Wilson was a consultant for Sandia (Lockheed-Martin), not LANL.

March 1, 2017 at 11:07 AM


Sorry, Charlie, but read the posted article. There are hundreds of pages of investigators' field notes referenced in the article, most of which are related to alleged wrongdoings with LANL. While it may be correct that Sandia has settled their part of the case, that was not the main point of the story.
Anonymous said…
Old news recycled by desperate Dimocrats. This story broke in or before July 2013. It's about contracts that started in 2009. Obama's AG, Eric "Fast and Furious" Holder didn't find evidence of wrongdoing sufficient to file charges.

Nothing here, just more Demmy noise.
Anonymous said…
March 2, 2017 at 11:33 AM

The news are that Trump promised to drain the swamp, and then he hires all these swamp dwellers.
BTW , why did Lockheed pay a fine? Why did Lockheed loose the bid?

But in the words of the immortal George Carlin:
“Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.”
Anonymous said…
You should have written "in the immortal words of George Carlin" not "the immortal George Carlin" because Carlin isn't immortal. You can easily tell because he is dead.

The word isn't "loose" it's "lose" and, in your usage, news is singular so you should have written "The news is", not "The news are".

Your poor writing skills give us all the clues we need to be able to tell who the real idiot is here.

Anonymous said…
March 2, 2017 at 9:13 PM

“Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.”
Anonymous said…
Compared to the folks already in place in Washington (both sides of the aisle) Heather Wilson is a baby alligator.
Anonymous said…
Heather Wilson was the first female veteran elected to Congress. As a Republican, she served 5 terms in one of the few Democrat States left. She was a University President.

Swamp dweller? No way. Only in the feeble mind of one ignorant Democrat.
Anonymous said…
She was a University President.
March 3, 2017 at 12:07 PM

And Trump had his own University. Yes, clearly a sign of respectability.

(sorry could not resist)
Anonymous said…
Yeah, like the two Universities are equivalent. Sheesh.

Reach down with both hands, 1:00 PM. Grab your ears. Tug sharply in a downward direction. There! Did you pull your head out? Do things now smell better? Can you now actually read the idiotic posts you type?
Anonymous said…
March 3, 2017 at 3:17 PM

I give up, you won. You have such great arguments. I am utterly defeated, I concede you are not only a morally but also intellectually superior being. Hope this will make your day.
Anonymous said…
Never before have the political rantings and ravings of the unwashed masses been so entertaining. Better than reality TV.

Popular posts from this blog

Plutonium Shots on NIF.

Tri-Valley Cares needs to be on this if they aren't already. We need to make sure that NNSA and LLNL does not make good on promises to pursue such stupid ideas as doing Plutonium experiments on NIF. The stupidity arises from the fact that a huge population is placed at risk in the short and long term. Why do this kind of experiment in a heavily populated area? Only a moron would push that kind of imbecile area. Do it somewhere else in the god forsaken hills of Los Alamos. Why should the communities in the Bay Area be subjected to such increased risk just because the lab's NIF has failed twice and is trying the Hail Mary pass of doing an SNM experiment just to justify their existence? Those Laser EoS techniques and the people analyzing the raw data are all just BAD anyways. You know what comes next after they do the experiment. They'll figure out that they need larger samples. More risk for the local population. Stop this imbecilic pursuit. They wan...

Trump is to gut the labs.

The budget has a 20% decrease to DOE office of science, 20% cut to NIH. NASA also gets a cut. This will  have a huge negative effect on the lab. Crazy, juts crazy. He also wants to cut NEA and PBS, this may not seem like  a big deal but they get very little money and do great things.

LLNL un-diversity

Actual post from Dec. 15 from one of the streams. This is a real topic. As far as promoting women and minorities even if their qualifications are not as good as the white male scientists, I am all for it. We need diversity at the lab and if that is what it takes, so be it.  Quit your whining. Look around the lab, what do you see? White male geezers. How many African Americans do you see at the lab? Virtually none. LLNL is one of the MOST undiverse places you will see. Face it folks, LLNL is an institution of white male privilege and they don't want to give up their privileged positions. California, a state of majority Hispanics has the "crown jewel" LLNL nestled in the middle of it with very FEW Hispanics at all!