McCain may seek Boeing repayments

[seemslikeadream]

(Reuters) — Boeing Co. may have to repay any ill-gotten gains in the Pentagon's biggest contracting scandal in more than a decade, Senate Armed Services Committee member John McCain said Friday.
McCain, in a stinging indictment of a stalled Air Force drive to get modified Boeing 767s as refueling tankers, said he planned to ``find out how much money we can reclaim if necessary on behalf of taxpayers'' from contracting abuses confessed to by ex-Air Force weapons buyer Darleen Druyun.

The Arizona Republican, who heads the Commerce Committee, said in a Senate floor speech he would take a fresh look at the entire Pentagon procurement process starting in January.
Druyun admitted to a federal judge last month she improperly steered more than $6 billion of Air Force contracts to Boeing since 2000 before joining the company as a $250,000-a-year vice president in January 2003.

Among other things, she said she had agreed to pay more than she thought justified for a planned initial batch of 100 tankers as a ``parting gift'' to the Chicago-based company, the Pentagon's No. 2 supplier.
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Senator reveals Air Force-Boeing e-mail exchanges, demands accountability
By Amy Klamper, CongressDaily


Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., stood on the Senate floor Friday and read e-mail exchanges between Boeing Co., executives and Air Force officials that he said revealed an improper relationship aimed at securing a $30 billion tanker lease deal.
In a floor speech, McCain entered the documents into the Congressional Record as he demanded accountability from top Air Force leaders for lying to Congress while pursuing a deal to lease and buy 100 KC-767 aerial refueling tankers. He cited a body of evidence in the form of internal e-mail exchanges and memos that he said reveal impropriety and a lack of ethics in negotiating the lease.

"This appears to be a case of either a systemic failure in procurement oversight, willful blindness or rank corruption," McCain said. "Either way, accountability among Air Force leadership is in order."

McCain's actions ended months of silence regarding the contents of thousands of internal government documents related to the Air Force's contentious plan to lease Boeing aerial refueling tankers. Over the past two years McCain has unearthed thousands of e-mail exchanges between Boeing executives and government officials revealing the lengths to which Boeing and the Air Force went to secure the lease.
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http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1104/111904cdpm1.htm