Newly introduced legislation to reign in corruption at the Defense Department calls for imposing restrictions on contractor hiring of Pentagon officials, Senator and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren said in statement on Thursday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th May, 2019) Newly introduced legislation to reign in corruption at the Defense Department calls for imposing restrictions on contractor hiring of Pentagon officials, Senator and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren said in statement on Thursday."My plan would ban giant defense contractors from hiring senior DOD officials and general and flag officers for four years after they leave the Department... [and] a former employee or executive of a defense contractor who joins the government would be totally banned from working on anything that could influence their former bosses," Warren said in a statement posted on the Medium.com social platform.
Warren said her Department of Defense Ethics and Anti-Corruption Act, introduced in the Senate on Thursday, would also ban Pentagon officials from owning contractor stock in addition to exposing defense industry lobbying. In addition, the bill would limit foreign government hiring of US national security officials.
According to Warren, Lockheed Martin - the country's largest defense contractor - received more than $35 billion in taxpayer Dollars through Pentagon business, which is more than NASA's entire budget.
"It's past time to cut our bloated defense budget. Defense contractor influence is a big part of how we ended up with a Pentagon budget that will cost more this year than Ronald Reagan spent at the height of the Cold War," Warren added.
On Wednesday, Senator Chuck Grassley published a letter addressed to acting US Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan in which asked the secretary to answers questions related to price gouging on DOD contracts and how Congress could help stop those practices.
In his letter, Grassley pointed to a February DoD IG report, which said that TransDigm overcharged the department by $16.1 million on a total of $29.7 million in contracts.
Grassley gave Shanahan until June 13 to provide answers to eight questions concerning the issue of price gouging.
