Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) took to the Senate floor Jan. 3 to criticize Pentagon officials with defense industry backgrounds, specifically targeting a former Lockheed Martin executive tapped for a senior Defense Department post.
Warren spoke in advance of a vote to confirm John Rood, a former Lockheed executive nominated to serve as the next under secretary of defense for policy. Warren said she opposes confirming Rood, but also criticized other DOD officials, including Deputy Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan, who was an executive at Boeing, and Ellen Lord, the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, who previously served as chief executive of Textron Systems.
"President Trump has stocked the Pentagon with an unprecedented number of nominees directly from the defense industry," she said. "These nominees will oversee all those government contracts. They will influence which companies get billions in taxpayer dollars and what exactly those companies have to do to collect their checks. Without strict ethics rules and oversight, these nominees have the power to significantly influence the profitability of their former employers -- the same companies that may, once again, be the nominees' future employers after they have finished their government service."
Warren also pointed to Army Secretary Mark Esper, a former Raytheon lobbyist; Army Under Secretary Ryan McCarthy; a former Lockheed executive; and Jay Gibson, DOD's chief management officer who previously served as chief executive of XCOR Aerospace.
"Industry experience, in and of itself, does not disqualify someone from public service. But there must be balance," Warren said. "When too many top government jobs are filled by industry insiders, we risk corporate capture of the whole policymaking process."
Warren said her opposition to Rood, who most recently was senior vice president of Lockheed Martin International, stemmed from his answer to a question she posed on whether he would recuse himself from discussions involving international weapons sales.
"I asked him a simple yes-or-no question: would he commit to not seek a waiver from his obligation to recuse himself from Lockheed Martin business, as required by his ethics agreement?" Warren said. "He hemmed and he hawed, and he made it clear that no, he would not make that commitment. So I asked him another simple question: would he at least recuse himself from policy discussions about the sale of Lockheed Martin products through the foreign military sales program? The answer was again clear: No, he would not make that commitment."
Warren said she followed up with Rood in writing, and he did not agree to avoid a waiver from recusal obligations under his ethics agreement.
"Here is his response: 'I am concerned that a commitment never to seek or accept a waiver could unnecessarily restrict my ability, if confirmed, to take an action that is important to U.S. national security and defense interests should a circumstance arise that is currently unforeseen,'" Warren said.
Rood, despite also coming under fire from Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-AZ) at his confirmation hearing, advanced through committee and was subsequently confirmed Jan. 3 by the full Senate.
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has spoken out in support of Trump's defense industry nominees.
"They're bringing knowledge with them," Inhofe said in November. "There's kind of a tendency to assume . . . that somehow industry is all on the take and they're the bad guy. But look, there are knowledgeable ones too."