Report: Obama Administration Asked Air Force General To Alter Congressional Testimony To Help Firm Owned By Democratic Donor

Oh really?

Now the Pentagon has been raising concerns about a new wireless project by a satellite broadband company in Virginia called LightSquared, whose majority owner is an investment fund run by Democratic donor Philip Falcone. Gen. Shelton was originally scheduled to testify Aug. 3 to a House committee that the project would interfere with the military’s sensitive Global Positioning Satellite capabilities, which control automated driving directions and missile targeting, among other things.

According to officials familiar with the situation, [Gen. William] Shelton’s prepared testimony was leaked in advance to the company. And the White House asked the general to alter the testimony to add two points: that the general supported the White House policy to add more broadband for commercial use; and that the Pentagon would try to resolve the questions around LightSquared with testing in just 90 days. Shelton chafed at the intervention, which seemed to soften the Pentagon’s position and might be viewed as helping the company as it tries to get the project launched, the officials said.

“There was an attempt to influence the text of the testimony and to engage LightSquared in the process in order to bias his testimony,” Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) said in an interview. “The only people who were involved in the process in preparation for the hearing included the Department of Defense, the White House, and the Office Management and Budget.”

It's not like GPS is important to the military or anyone with a SatNav system in their car or anything. Minor trifles compared to helping out a friend, especially when it's going to take a lot of campaign money to smear the GOP for the next year plus.

The administration says OMB reviews all proposed testimony and resolves any issues with the person giving it beforehand and that politics didn't play a role in this.

Now, I can get that there's a general review of all testimony within the administration and that tweaking takes place but...leaking the testimony to the company involved? I'm not involved in defense contracts so maybe that's not unheard of but it seems to have pissed off a lot of people in this case.

Given what we know of how this administration likes to work hand in glove with politically connected companies *cough*Solyndra*cough* and the fact that Shelton and Turner spilled the beans, this goes beyond the norm.

Well, it's the norm for a Chicago hack pol like Obama.

Remember all the calls from the left to prosecute Bush era officials? I think we're going to hear a lot of that from the right over the next 16 months or so.

posted by DrewM. at 10:42 AM

| Access Comments