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GAO recommends the U.S. Department of Defense amend regulations restricting lobbying by former personnel.
Veterans leave the military with a wide variety of skills, ranging from bomb disposal techniques to aerial combat strategies. These skills make veterans and civilian officials who leave the U.S. Department of Defense attractive hires for businesses that contract with the Defense Department, such as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing.
But when senior military and civilian officials begin working for defense contractors after leaving their government positions—as more than 1,700 did from 2014 to 2019—concerns of potential conflicts of interest arise. The movement of personnel from their roles in government to relevant industries, and sometimes back again, is known as a revolving door, and the Defense Department restricts former personnel from certain employment activities with defense contractors.
But the existing post-government employment regulations may not be strict enough, according to a recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the government oversight arm of the U.S. Congress. Specifically, GAO recommends that the Defense Department amend the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) to require that defense contractors affirm their employees’ compliance with updated lobbying restrictions in any contract proposal.
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