Trump Is Filling Top Pentagon
and Homeland Security Positions
With Defense Contractors
By Lee Fang
March 22, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- President Donald Trump has
weaponized the revolving door by
appointing defense contractors
and their lobbyists to key
government positions as he seeks
to rapidly expand the military
budget and homeland security
programs.
Two
Department of Homeland Security
appointments Trump announced Tuesday
morning
are perfect examples.
Benjamin Cassidy, installed by
Trump as assistant secretary for
legislative affairs, previously
worked as a senior executive at
Boeing’s international business
sector, marketing Boeing
military products
abroad. Jonathan
Rath Hoffman, named assistant
secretary for public affairs,
previously worked as a
consultant to the Chertoff
Group, the sprawling homeland
security consulting firm founded
by former Secretary of Homeland
Security Michael Chertoff. The
firm has come under
fire
for advising a variety of firms
seeking government contracts,
including for full-body scanners
deemed invasive by privacy
activists. Hoffman also led a
state chapter
of a neoconservative
military-contractor advocacy
organization during the 2016
presidential campaign. Neither
position requires Senate
confirmation.
Personnel from major defense
companies now occupy the highest
ranks of the administration
including cabinet members and
political appointees charged
with implementing the Trump
agenda. At least 15 officials
with financial ties to defense
contractors have been either
nominated or appointed so far,
with potentially more industry
names on the way as Trump has
yet to nominate a variety of
roles in the government,
including Army and Navy
secretaries.
Before their confirmations, Jim
Mattis and John Kelly, the
secretaries of the departments
of Defense and Homeland
Security, were primarily paid
by defense firms.
Mattis was paid $242,000, along
with up to $500,000 in vested
stock options, as director of
General Dynamics, a company that
produces submarines, tanks, and
a range of munitions for the
military. Mattis also received
speaking fees from several
firms, including Northrop
Grumman. Kelly previously
served in
a number of roles at defense
contracting consulting and
lobbying firms and worked
directly as an
adviser
to Dyncorp, a company that
contracts with
the Immigrations and Customs
Enforcement.
Defense firms have eagerly
watched as Trump recently
unveiled a budget calling for
$54 billion
in additional military spending
next year, as well as an
additional
$30 billion for
the Pentagon and the Department
of Homeland Security for this
fiscal year, which ends on
September 31. About
$15.5 billion
of the $30 billion is slated to
be spent on new military
equipment.
The spending spree will provide
a brand new opportunity for
defense lobbyists to get
business for their clients. And
the most effective lobbying
generally involves contacting
former colleagues in positions
of power.
Major lobbying groups for the
arms companies, including the
National Defense Industrial
Association and the Aerospace
Industries Association,
welcomed
the
selection
of Secretary Mattis, who has
already
scheduled
meetings with industry
executives. Secretary Kelly has
pledged to work more closely
with the private sector,
promising
greater collaboration with
private firms to accomplish his
agency’s goals.
To carry out this private-sector
friendly agenda, defense
officials have taken major roles
throughout Trump’s
administration.
Pat
Shanahan, nominated last week by
Trump to serve as deputy
secretary of defense, is a vice
president at Boeing who formerly
led the company’s missile
defense subsidiary. Disclosures
show
that Elaine Duke, the nominee
for deputy secretary of homeland
security, previously consulted
for Booz Allen Hamilton, General
Dynamics, and the Columbia
Group, a small contractor that
builds
unmanned naval drones.
The
nominee to lead the Air Force,
former New Mexico Congresswoman
Heather Wilson, worked as a
consultant to a Lockheed Martin
subsidiary after retiring from
public office. The company
sought Wilson’s help to maintain
a
$2.4 billion
a year contract to manage Sandia
National Laboratories, the
premiere nuclear weapons
research facility, and to keep
the contract closed
to competition. “Lockheed Martin
should aggressively lobby
Congress, but keep a low
profile,” Wilson urged the
company in a memo revealed later
by an inspector general report.
Trump’s pick for national
security council chief of staff,
retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg,
has worked at a variety of
defense contracting
companies. After serving in
senior roles in Iraq’s
provisional government after the
2003 invasion, Kellogg left the
government for the private
sector. He
told
the Washington Post in 2005 that
he joined Oracle to “establish a
homeland security business unit”
at the firm, and later joined
CACI International, a company
with major contracts in the wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Following CACI, Kellogg
joined
Cubic Defense in 2009 to
develop
the company’s combat training
business.
A
list of temporary political
appointees recently
published
by ProPublica reveals a number
of less-known influence peddlers
who have taken senior roles in
the administration.
Chad Wolf and
Lora Ries,
two recently appointed advisers
at the Department of Homeland
Security, are formerly
registered defense lobbyists.
Wolf
lobbied
for Harris Corp. and the United
Launch Alliance, a partnership
between Boeing and Lockheed
Martin. Ries previously
lobbied
for a range of defense and
homeland security contractors,
including Altegrity, Boeing,
Implant Sciences Corp., General
Dynamics, L1 Identity Solutions,
and TASC Inc.
In
the White House, one of the
newest members of the National
Economic Council staff is
Michael Catanzaro, formerly a
registered
lobbyist
working for both Boeing and
Halliburton.
Palanatir Technology’s Justin
Mikolay, formerly a chief
in-house lobbyist for the
company who
worked
to win over billions of dollars
in Army
contracts,
was quietly appointed to serve
as a special assistant in the
Office of the Secretary of
Defense.
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Several appointees are
associated with SBD Advisors, a
consulting that firm that
advertises
its ability to
facilitate “engagements between
the technology and defense
sectors,” and is advised by a
high profile team of former
government leaders, including
former Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff retired Adm.
Mike Mullen and former National
Security Agency Director of
Operations Ron Moultrie.
SBD
Advisors’d Sally Donnelly and
Tony DeMartino work as temporary
political appointees at the
Office of the Defense Secretary,
according to the list assembled
by ProPublica. Kristan King
Nevins, recently
appointed
as chief of staff to Second Lady
Karen Pence, also previously
worked at SBD Advisors as the
director of communications.
The Trump administration is the
“military-industrial complex
personified,” said William
Hartung, director of the Arms &
Security Project at the Center
for International Policy.
Hartung noted that while the
administration is bringing arms
industry officials into
government, it is also demanding
a massive increase in military
spending and appears to be
escalating conflicts in Syria
and Yemen.
“In
short, the Trump proposals are
an armsmaker’s dream come true,”
he said.
