Washington, D.C. – The following is a written statement by Keith Ashdown, Vice President of Policy at Taxpayers for Common Sense regarding the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) referring 8 more of Darlene Druyun’s contracts to the Department of Defense (DOD) Office of the Inspector General for further review:

A new report from the Pentagon has recommended that the DOD Inspector General expand the number of Boeing contracts being investigated to11 and the number of Druyun-tainted contracts to 15. Throughout her tenure at the Air Force, Druyun acquired an unprecedented level of power that enabled her to steer billions worth of contracts to Boeing while other Air Force officials twiddled their thumbs. It is clear that Darleen Druyun lost sight of who was signing her paycheck and became a government officer for hire.

The Air Force and the Pentagon should be applauded for the attention they have given to this issue. But it’s unclear whether the expansion of the Druyun dragnet is just an effort to spin their way out of this ethics storm or if they are seriously planning to prevent this from happening again. If they are serious about clearing the air, the Air Force and the Pentagon need to stop impeding current congressional investigations and fulfill Senate investigators’ requests for Boeing-related documents. For long term prevention, randomly reviewing contracts for suspicious activity should be a routine practice, not something that is performed seven years later and billions of dollars after the fact.