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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLockheed Martin pays $4.7 million to settle charges it lobbied for federal contract with federal
moneyFull story at this link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/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/?hpid=z17
The worlds largest defense contractor has agreed to pay $4.7 million to settle charges that it illegally used government money to lobby top federal officials to extend its contract to run one of the countrys premier nuclear weapons labs.
Over five years starting in 2009, top executives for Lockheed Martin who were being paid by the federal government to run Sandia National Laboratories ran a fierce campaign to lobby members of Congress and senior Obama administration officials for a seven-year extension of their contract, according to the settlement the Justice Department announced Friday.
Lockheed executives, who hired a former New Mexico congresswoman to help them, didnt just press people with influence to re-hire them for a deal worth $2.4 billion a year, as Energy Department Inspector General Gregory Friedman disclosed in an investigation last fall. They urged them to close the bidding to competition..... Friedman revealed how Sandia hired Wilsons consulting firm and two unnamed former employees of Energys National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the nuclear labs. Wilsons company, Heather Wilson LLC, gave explicit guidance to the Sandia team on how to influence the most important people in Washington who would decide whether Lockheeds contract would be renewed.
Lockheed Martin should aggressively lobby Congress, but keep a low profile, she advised.
Lockheed, which also manufactures the $400 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, has contracted with the Energy Department to run Sandia since 1993. The research lab is part of the governments nuclear weapons complex, with facilities in Albuquerque and Livermore, Calif......
Over five years starting in 2009, top executives for Lockheed Martin who were being paid by the federal government to run Sandia National Laboratories ran a fierce campaign to lobby members of Congress and senior Obama administration officials for a seven-year extension of their contract, according to the settlement the Justice Department announced Friday.
Lockheed executives, who hired a former New Mexico congresswoman to help them, didnt just press people with influence to re-hire them for a deal worth $2.4 billion a year, as Energy Department Inspector General Gregory Friedman disclosed in an investigation last fall. They urged them to close the bidding to competition..... Friedman revealed how Sandia hired Wilsons consulting firm and two unnamed former employees of Energys National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the nuclear labs. Wilsons company, Heather Wilson LLC, gave explicit guidance to the Sandia team on how to influence the most important people in Washington who would decide whether Lockheeds contract would be renewed.
Lockheed Martin should aggressively lobby Congress, but keep a low profile, she advised.
Lockheed, which also manufactures the $400 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, has contracted with the Energy Department to run Sandia since 1993. The research lab is part of the governments nuclear weapons complex, with facilities in Albuquerque and Livermore, Calif......
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Lockheed Martin pays $4.7 million to settle charges it lobbied for federal contract with federal (Original Post)
MADem
Aug 2015
OP
Rex
(65,616 posts)1. Oh sure why not, would you spend your own money when Uncle Sam gives you an allowance!?
LM is a 'too big to fail' MIC cornerstone, I am surprised the govt didn't buy them and save trillions over the decades long ago. Just make it part of the military already...get a room you two!
Too bad they didn't go into banking like Citicorp, people don't seem to get as mad when they write the laws for Congress. I guess LM did something wrong and pissed off the wrong group of people.
Oh well, kick them where it hurts...take money...sometimes that is all a company will listen to. LM, in this case, probably didn't even blink.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)2. Why we can't have nice things, exhibit 56,267 n/t
hunter
(38,326 posts)3. Lockheed Martin is a money laundering operation...
... inefficiently turning our taxes into campaign contributions.