Pentagon Pressures Auditors To Skew Reports In Favor Of Contractors

Saint Paul [07/25/08] – As Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Norm Coleman failed to hold a single hearing on the waste, fraud, and abuse that sabotaged the reconstruction of Iraq. Today, the Washington Post reports on another Tale from the Oversight-Free Zone.

Al Franken:

“Norm Coleman’s failure to perform his oversight responsibilities cost us dearly in terms of our effort to rebuild Iraq. But it also cost taxpayers billions of dollars. This shocking waste and outright fraud happened right under his nose – but Norm Coleman never lifted a finger to protect the public trust.”

The Post reports:

Auditors at a Pentagon oversight agency were pressured by supervisors to skew their reports on major defense contractors to make them look more favorable instead of exposing wrongdoing and charges of overbilling, according to an 80-page report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office.

The Defense Contract Audit Agency, which oversees contractors for the Defense Department, “improperly influenced the audit scope, conclusions and opinions” of reviews of contractor performance, the GAO said, creating a “serious independence issue.”

According to the GAO, the agency agreed to “limit the scope of work and basis for an audit” when negotiating with at least one of the contractors. Auditors who noticed “significant deficiencies” and drafted a report were threatened with personnel action if the senior auditor “did not delete findings from the report and change the draft audit opinion to adequate.”

In another example, auditors reporting problems with a second contractor were simply replaced with new managers, who “changed the agency’s opinion from ‘inadequate’ to ‘adequate.’”

This, like so many other Tales from the Oversight-Free Zone, took place while Chairman Coleman, who took over ten thousand dollars from two of the contractors in question in this case, sat idly by.

Washington Post article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/23/AR2008072301437.html

Coleman Took $5,500 From Boeing’s PAC. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Coleman’s re-election campaign has taken $5,500 from Boeing’s political action committee. [Center for responsive Politics, Accessed 7/25/08]
http://opensecrets.org/pacs/expenddetail.php?cycle=2008&cmte=C00142711&name=Coleman+for+Senate+08

Coleman Took $9,000 From Northrup Grumman’s PAC. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Coleman’s campaigns have taken $7,000 from Northrup Grumman’s political action committee. In 2006 Coleman’s leadership PAC, Northstar PAC, took $2,000 from Northrup Grumman’s political action committee. [Center for Responsive Politics, Accessed, 7/25/08]
http://opensecrets.org/pacs/expenddetail.php?cycle=2008&cmte=C00088591&name=COLEMAN+FOR+SENATE+08
http://opensecrets.org/pacs/pac2pac.php?cycle=2006&cmte=C00088591
http://opensecrets.org/pacs/expenddetail.php?cycle=2002&cmte=C00088591&name=NORM+COLEMAN+FOR+U.S.+SENATE

This entry was posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 at 11:27 and is filed under Press Releases. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.