General Cashes in on Revolving Door?

After retiring, Air Force General Hal Hornburg did what many military retirees do—he went to work for a defense contractor selling weapons to the Pentagon. Six months after leaving, his company landed a $50 million contract with the Air Force Thunderbirds. Now the FBI and the Pentagon's Inspector General are looking into whether Hornburg and two other Generals steered the contract inappropriately. ABC News reported on the story last night.

The Air Force terminated the contract in February after a competing firm filed a bid protest with the Government Accountability Office. The Arizona Republic broke the story in March when it reported on emails showing that that General Moseley, "the highest-ranking officer in the U.S. Air Force," was involved in pushing the contract. According to the Republic: "months before the Air Force publicly sought proposals for the work, documents show, top-ranking officials, including Moseley, tried to 'sole-source' the contract to SMS [Hornburg's company, Strategic Message Solutions] without putting it out for bid."

CORRECTION: This blog entry was corrected from its earlier version. It orginally stated: "The Air Force terminated the contract in February after a competing firm prevailed in a bid protest which was filed with the Government Accountability Office." As a reader helpfully pointed out to us: "the GAO dismissed the protest after the Air Force itself, voluntarily terminated the contract."