Queso1 said:
aggiehawg said:
Is anyone surprised? I'm not. That has been the norm in defense procurement for centuries.
It wasn't for my father. My pops worked the F16 program for years. He was a LT Colonel and liaison between the USAF and a foreign nation. He wasn't permitted to work for General Dynamics for a period of time after retiring. He ended up at GD and eventually Lockheed Martin after their purchase. After their prescribed time he got a job at GD/Lockheed and worked there for years on several international programs.
This is to say that there are rules for the actual workers, but not for the figurehead morons.
The most surprising thing in this case is the Admiral's brashness and stupidity. It's not as if he would not have been able to find other employment. This is a case where even the Merrick Garland DoJ could not ignore what he was doing because it was in plain view of everyone in the Pentagon and industry. This was a case where somebody must have told Admiral Burke, "You do know I can see you, right?"
Generals and Flags are advised to get ethics opinion letters from the staff judge advocate prior to retiring because they have specific restrictions and limitations on employment as they are considered senior government officials. The legal counsels of all the large defense contractors know that when they hire a retired GO/FO that there are specific restrictions on the work they can do and the meetings they cannot attend with government employees.
As a retiring acquisition PM, I got an ethics opinion letter from my command and provided a copy to every company for which I consulted for the first two years after I retired. After two years of being retired, especially since I was not a GO, the legal counsel for the contractors stopped caring because they knew that any restrictions were expired.
