"Just when you thought youd heard the end of the illegal escapades of former Boeing exec Darleen Druyun, along comes another chapter that includes allegations of a 'clean up' and deletion' of documents," the Project on Government Oversight notes. "Government auditors are calling this one the '15 September Massacre.'"
Earlier this year, Druyun began serving a six-month sentence at Club Fed for felony conspiracy in relation to her illegally taking a job with Boeing Company while overseeing a fat Air Force tanker lease contract... Since the tanker scandal Druyun also has been suspected of steering other weapons contracts to Boeing and other defense contractors more than you can count on your two hands. Druyuns name surfaced again during testimony Thursday afternoon before the Senate Armed Services Airland Subcommittee...
The man pointing the finger at Druyun this time was Daniel I. Gordon, [with] the [Congressional investigators at the] Government Accountability Office. Gordon led an investigation... into the awarding of contracts that the former No. 2 Air Force acquisition official supervised one a small diameter bomb contract and the other a C-130 avionics modernization contract. Gordons investigation concluded that the two contracts were improperly awarded.
During the C-130 Avionics contract, Gordon said, [Druyun] requested that contract evaluators first come to Washington D.C. on September 15, 2000 to discuss the status of their evaluations of who should get the contract. During that meeting and four subsequent meetings, Druyun expressly or implicitly directed multiple changes to the evaluators ratings, many of which favored Boeing, Gordon said. Then following the request for final proposal revisions, the contracting officer (not named in the testimony) sent an email to a recipient list that included virtually everyone involved in the source selection process, directing them to clean up and delete various portions of the evaluation record.
With so many big Defense Department projects going so wrong, it's no wonder McCain is now calling a "broad review" of the Pentagon's system for buying things.
The sleazy Druyun affair is just one "glaring example of a management and oversight failure in our acquisition process," McCain said at an Armed Services subcommittee hearing yesterday. "Clearly, we need to examine the whole procurement process as it works today in the Department of Defense."
