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| Cyber |
| Emails, Documents Reveal Tangled Web of Amazon, Pentagon Connections Surrounding Defense Cloud Contract |
| 2023-02-14 |
| [Breitbart] A top United States senator focused on government corruption is pushing the Pentagon inspector general to reopen an investigation into allegations that a former top defense official engaged in ethical misconduct related to a multi-billion dollar defense contract, citing new evidence. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, is requesting that the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General (DOD OIG) reopen its investigation, claiming that a former DOD official, Sally Donnelly, failed to disclose a potential conflict of interest to the DOD OIG when it was investigating the allegations of ethical misconduct surrounding a contract which involved billions of American taxpayer dollars. The DOD OIG published its final report on April 13, 2020, which said, “We determined that Ms. Donnelly did not violate any ethical agreements and obligations regarding Office of Government Ethics financial disclosures, [and] did not give preferential treatment to Amazon officials or restrict access to Secretary Mattis for other industry leaders.” However, Grassley says Donnelly did not disclose to the DOD OIG exactly who purchased her consulting firm just prior to beginning her employment at the DOD, which he argues was relevant to the DOD OIG’s investigation and could have affected its findings. NEW EVIDENCE OBTAINED BY GRASSLEY Grassley presented the new evidence in his October 24, 2022, letter. Just before entering the DOD in 2017, Donnelly sold her consulting firm SBD Advisors, according to her publicly available financial disclosure forms. However, Donnelly never revealed on her forms or in public reporting exactly who had purchased her firm. According to Grassley, Donnelly never told the DOD OIG who purchased her firm either. After pressing the DOD OIG for the Purchase and Sale Agreement for Donnelly’s company, Grassley found that the DOD OIG only had a copy with the identity of the purchaser’s name redacted, and that the DOD OIG had argued to him that the identity of the purchaser was not relevant to their investigation. Grassley said he finally obtained an unredacted copy of the Purchase and Sale Agreement in October 2022 — long after the DOD OIG ended its investigation — which revealed that an entity named VMAP Investor, LLC (VMAP) had purchased her firm. The “AP” in VMAP are the initials of its part-owner, Andre Pienaar. Grassley argued that this would indeed have been relevant to the DOD OIG’s investigation. Pienaar is not only the CEO and founder of C5 Capital — one of Donnelly’s clients — but at the time he was also dating — and later married — the Amazon Web Services executive who was then in charge of the company’s bid for the lucrative defense contract, Teresa Carlson. |
| Posted by:Skidmark |
| #3 /\ Thanks for your posting Slav. "He’s been called an evil foreign agent by former president Jacob Zuma, and been vilified by journalists as a conniving intelligence operator." "Don't judge me by my friends, judge me by my enemies." ~ FDR Andre Pienaar: International Man of Intelligence (lengthy YouTube) |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2023-02-14 06:54 |
| #2 22 October 2021 BY TIMESLIVE André Pienaar. South Africa-born André Pienaar has been much maligned in the country of his birth. He’s been called an evil foreign agent by former president Jacob Zuma, and been vilified by journalists as a conniving intelligence operator. He quotes US statesman Franklin D Roosevelt when asked how he feels about this. “Judge me by my enemies,” he says, “not my friends.” Pienaar, the founder and managing partner of C5 Capital, an international investment group specialising in technology.... He’s a major player in cybersecurity, and in the space and nuclear power industries. He leads the Limitless Space Institute and is on the boards of several cybersecurity companies; he’s on the advisory council of the US Institute of Peace; and he’s served on the president’s council of the transnational non-profit, International Crisis Group. |
| Posted by: Slavising Unineting5672 2023-02-14 06:36 |
| #1 Didn't some woman exec who went from Boeing to DoD go to jail over this sort of thing? Why, yes, that did happen... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2023-02-14 06:34 |