Republic Report: Northrop Grumman Employee Paid Bonus Before Joining House Committee

UPDATE:  06/13/2012/3:35 p.m:

Report: Blumenthal Calls on Northrop to Explain Bonus

Earlier this week, Republic Report had the story of how Northrop Grumman paid an employee, Thomas MacKenzie, a $498,334 bonus before he left to join the House Armed Services Committee as a staffer, an amount that almost equaled his annual salary.

Now, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) is calling on the defense contractor to "explain to Congress and the American public" the payment, according to the Connecticut Post. The Post reports that Northrop has announced it is shuttering a plant in Connecticut.

The Post reports:

"The company owes that explanation, particularly in light of its decision to close the Northrop plant in Norwalk,'' Blumenthal said. ...

Blumenthal, a freshman member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said MacKenzie's bonus "is totally inexplicable.''

At the least, Blumenthal said, "The perception is horrible, at a time when the credibility of Congress is certainly in question. I'm concerned about the integrity of the Defense Department budget if it is tainted by any whiff of a payoff.''

Efforts to reach MacKenzie were unsuccessful, but Northrop said there was nothing unusual about the payment, and the Armed Services Committee said he was an excellent hire.

****** 

Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) took back over this committee after the GOP won back the House and then tapped someone from Northrup Grumman one of the three major aerospace companies to start work with the Committee in March of 2011.  If that is not a conflict of interest, I don't know the meaning.  Taking a vice president at Northrop Grumman, Thomas MacKenzie, defies any sense of ethics that I can think of today and then learning that Northrop paid him a huge bonus before he took the job makes it worse.  A little recent background on Mr. MacKenzie, a former Naval aviator and Naval Academy grad:

MacKenzie joined Northrop Grumman in 2005 as corporate director of navy programs. Before coming to Northrop Grumman, he had spent seven years as the senior professional staff member of the Senate Armed Services Committee where he was responsible for providing recommendations on oversight of all aviation, shipbuilding and associated weapons systems development and procurement programs.   

ARLINGTON, Va., May 17, 2007 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) has named Thomas L. MacKenzie, vice president of naval programs. In this position, MacKenzie reports to Larry Lanzillotta, vice president of customer relations within Northrop Grumman's government relations organization located in the company's Washington office.

That second paragraph above from the Northrop Grumman press release screams lobbyist.  So Mr. MacKenzie goes from senior staff on the Armed Services Committee to a fat cat job with Northrop and then gets promoted, goes back to Armed Services and gets a huge bonus from Northrop.  We are supposed to just do a wink and nod -- nothing to see here folks just move along.

When I changed the name of the blog to incorporate Republicans, little did I realize that it would be so true.  How much did Northrop donate McKeon to get their person on the Committee?  From Open Secrets:

Top 5 Contributors, 2011-2012, Campaign Cmte

Contributor	Total	Indivs	PACs
Lockheed Martin	$64,250	$54,250	$10,000
Northrop Grumman	$50,500	$34,500	$16,000
General Dynamics	$36,000	$26,000	$10,000
General Atomics	$32,500	$22,500	$10,000
Boeing Co	$31,750	$21,750	$10,000

Top 5 Industries, 2011-2012, Campaign Cmte

Industry	Total	Indivs	PACs
Defense Aerospace	$168,500	$84,000	$84,500
Misc Defense	$144,100	$66,600	$77,500
Defense Electronics	$116,500	$51,000	$65,500
Lobbyists	$46,349	$44,384	$1,965
Education	$43,250	$26,250	$17,000

Representative McKeon, by far the biggest recipient of Northrop Grumman campaign contributions in Congress, has defended billions of dollars in questionable projects for MacKenzie’s former employer. McKeon has fought to cancel the retirement of the Northrop’s RQ-4 Global Hawk, a drone the Pentagon could save $2.5 billion by cutting. He’s pressed to secure funding for a range of different aircraft developed by Northrop Grumman, from a new nuclear-capable long-range bomber to the F-35, which is slated to be the most expensive weapon developed in human history. Earlier this year, McKeon visited a Northrop plant and rallied employees to help him stave off nearly $500 billion in sequestration cuts to the defense budget as part of the deficit-reduction deal.

When I saw the F-35 listed as a system McKeon is trying to secure funding, it dawned on me while Lockheed, #1 contributor to McKeon, is the prime on the F35, Northrop and BAE are subcontractors.  That explains the donations from #1 Lockheed and #2 Northrop to McKeon.

No wonder the Defense budget is so far out of control and bloated when you have someone from Northrop working on Armed Services Committee and the Chair receives so many campaign contributions from the Aerospace community.  This is just wrong.  IMHO no Chairman should be allowed to accept donations from the companies who are involved with his committee.  In this case, it looks like pay for play anyway you slice it.  

This Republican House is not going to be looked at much favorably then the four years of Democrat control especially their last two when Obama was President, and they went nuts with the liberal's pet projects.  Now we are seeing the same thing with Republicans which is frankly disgusting.  I have been around the Defense Department most of my adult life and when I hear a member of Congress say that we cannot cut defense as it will hurt our troops, I cringe.  Guess when you are bought and paid for, you don't want to see all the wasted dollars especially when the waste comes from the same people who fund your campaign and provide committee members. 

My husband used to visit Northrop when he was heading programs for the MX Missile and then Minuteman.            I had seen the major companies come to the Command Section in the Headquarters trying to influence contracts for the Air Force Materiel Command but it was nothing compared to what I saw out of Northrop trying to influence the Ballistic Missile Office (BMO).   This doesn't shock me even a little but the fact a Republican Chair is involved disappoints me but I should know from experience that is how the DoD budget and especially the Air Force which I know best gets so bloated.  This I admit takes it to a new level:

Report: Northrop Grumman Employee Paid Bonus Before Joining House Committee

By Andrew Joseph

June 11, 2012 | 2:08 p.m.

Lee Fang of Republic Report reports on how Northrop Grumman paid an employee a six-figure bonus before he joined the House Armed Services Committee as a staffer:

In 2011, after Republicans seized the House of Representatives in a landslide victory, the House Armed Services Committee, which oversees the military, gained a new chairman, Representative Buck McKeon (R-CA). As with most leadership changes, McKeon and his committee hired new professional staff. Thomas MacKenzie, a vice president at Northrop Grumman, was tapped to work for the committee beginning in March of 2011.

There are many examples of lobbyists burrowing into government to work in policy areas that impact their former employers. These lobbyists, as Public Citizen's Craig Holman, an expert on lobbying, has explained, seem happy to accept low-paid public service salaries, perhaps because they can expect extremely high pay once they return to K Street.

In MacKenzie's case, Northrop Grumman made sure he had extra cash before he went to work writing policy on the defense budget. Republic Report viewed a recently filed ethics disclosure form, and found that Northrop Grumman paid MacKenzie a $498,334 bonus in 2011, just before he went to work under McKeon as a committee staffer. The bonus was almost the size of MacKenzie's annual salary at the firm, which was $529,379 in 2010.

Neither MacKenzie or the House Armed Services Committee communications director responded to multiple requests for comment from Republic Report. As a congressional staffer, MacKenzie now makes close to $100,000 a year.

Source:  Influence Alley of the National Journal 

Byron York: Admiral: U.S. studying Libyan rebels -- after going to war on their behalf

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton sent our military into a wartime situation on the side of the rebels when  they had no clue who they were. Senator Inhofe needs to keep pressing this issue because if Gadhafi falls, the chance of Al Qaeda supporters taking control in Libya seems very high.

In 2007, after a military study of the The Libyan Fighting Group (LIFG), it was determined that they had become an Al Qaeda affilitated terrorist organization and put on the State Department list of terrorist organization.  All the Administration had to do was google in 'libyan terrorist group' to find plenty of sites about the LIFG, including their own State Department site. Various sites detail when the LIFG joined Al Qaeda and the fact some of their leaders were in Afghanistan and Iraq fighting against the United States.

Now we have an Admiral saying there are "flickers" of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups who are part of the rebels. Well according some embed reporters with the rebels, it is more than a "flicker" and one of the heads of the rebels fought against the United States in Afghanistan after 9/11. Senator Inhofe asked the question in the hearing on Libya and gets a weasel word answer that there are "flickiers" and they are still investigating. Why didn't they bother to investigate before this wartime effort was launched? What was the rush to war?

Can any terrorist group can now call themselves rebels and expect support from the United Stateswith no checking into who they are? Have witnessed first hand ineptness out of the Government but this is beyond inept, this is negligence at the highest level.

What an absolute mess this Administration has gotten this Country in and all those people on both sides of the aisle that rushed in that we needed to be in Libya seems to have no clue just who the rebels are in Libya.  Looks like our military or the CIA doesn't have a clue about that either.

When did our intelligence agencies become so inept? Starts at the top and putting Leon Panetta at CIA has been a disaster. In fact, putting so many Clintonites in the Obama Administration in addition to Obama Czars and their staffs has been an imitigated disaster.  No one has yet to determine who Gadhafi was after with his march on certain cities. Gadhafi said it was against Al Qaeda and the drug smugglers. What if Gadhafi was right? Who provided the intelligence on Libya and Gadhafi -- Al Qaeda informants still on the side of Al Qaeda? Wish someone would ask that question!


The United States has no vested interest in Libya and it is not a threat so why was anyone for going into Libya without checking out the rebels? Why aren't more members of the mainstream media asking just who are these rebels. If they are indeed Al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbolla as many are now saying openly, why are we or NATO in the skies of Libya helping out the rebels?

This is the reason all Administrations need to go to Congress for approval before launching any attack for any reason except for immediate retaliation when we have been attacked. No President has the right to commit to military action when we have no vested interested like Obama did with Libya. His speech last night certainly did not change my mind that he violated the War Powers Act plain and simple.

Admiral: U.S. studying Libyan rebels -- after going to war on their behalf
By: Byron York 03/29/11 11:37 AM
Chief Political Correspondent http://twitter.com/ByronYork

Admiral James Stavridis, commander of NATO and overall chief of U.S. and coalition forces in the Libyan war, says American intelligence agents are "examining very closely" the rebel forces for whom U.S. forces have gone to war. So far, Stavridis says, the U.S. has discovered "flickers" of the presence of al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, although Stavridis calls the opposition leadership "responsible."

Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Stavridis was asked by Republican Sen. James Inhofe to comment on "reports about the presence of al Qaeda among the rebels, among those with whom we are associated." "As you can imagine, we are examining very closely the content, composition, the personalities, who are the leaders in these opposition forces," Stavridis responded. "The intelligence that I am receiving at this point makes me feel that the leadership I am seeing are responsible men and women who are struggling against Colonel Gadhafi. We have seen flickers in the intelligence of potential al Qaeda, Hezbollah, we've seen different things, but at this point I don't have detail sufficient to say that there is a significant al Qaeda presence or any other terrorist presence in and among these folks. We'll continue to look at that very closely. It's part of doing due diligence as we move forward on any kind of relationship."

Stavridis' testimony raises two questions. One is the extent of al Qaeda and other terrorist presence; what is a flicker? The second question is why the United States did not complete its "due diligence" before, and not after, going to war. "I don't say this critically of you, because you didn't make this decision," Inhofe said to Stavridis, "but wouldn't that have been a good idea to find out before we took the steps we are taking?"

"I think that from the moment this crisis unfolded, there has been a great deal of intelligence applied to this," Stavridis responded.

The lack of knowledge about the Libyan opposition has become a major question in the Libya conflict. At Monday's Pentagon briefing, Fox News reporter Jennifer Griffin asked another top official, Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, a very simple question: "Do you know who the opposition is, and does it matter to you?" "We're not talking with the opposition," Gortney responded. "We have -- we would like a much better understanding of the opposition. We don't have it. So yes, it does matter to us, and we're trying to fill in those gaps, knowledge gaps." Gortney's answer was another suggestion that the U.S. is doing critical due diligence on the fly in Libya.

Excerpt: Read more at the Washington Examiner

When you read that Fox News Reporter Jennifer Griffen asked a Vice Admiral "Do you know who the opposition is, and does it matter to you?  She gets a reply that they are not talking with the opposition and would like a better understanding.  As I said before he can google in 'libyan terrorist group' and find out who some members of the opposition are who took advantage of unrest of the younger people in Libya and now have taken over.

Bottom line is Obama and Clinton sent our military into war without knowing who the rebels were and with NO approval from Congress as there is no vested interest for the United States in Libya as stated by the Secretary of Defense.  This Administration violated the War Powers Act and when are they going to be held accountable? 

The Administration claim that NATO is in charge has to be the biggest spin yet as the United States is providing most of the weapon systems involved and even more with the C-130 gunships and A-10's now being into Libyan skies.  That doesn't even include that the United States funds NATO costs more than France and Great Britain together.  The NATO person in charge reports to two Americans including the American who heads NATO.  So who is really in charge?

America needs a restart in January 2013 with a new Administration who puts America first!