Emails, Documents Reveal Tangled Web of Amazon, Pentagon Connections Surrounding Defense Cloud Contract
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.
Grassley wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the DOD Inspector General Sean O’Donnell on October 24, 2022, asking them to reopen the investigation:
The American people must have confidence that their government isn’t plagued by conflicts of interest and that the decisions made by government officials are done for the people and their best interests, not the financial interests of government officials.
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.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/02/13/exclusive-emails-documents-reveal-tangled-web-of-amazon-pentagon-connections-surrounding-defense-cloud-contract/