Three ethics groups this week urged the leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee to reject Heather Wilson’s nomination as Air Force secretary given questions about her consulting for Department of Energy contractors.
“As leading organizations promoting ethics and accountability, we strongly urge you to vote against the nomination of Heather Wilson to be Secretary of the Air Force. Recently published articles … have underscored the questionable actions of former Rep. Heather Wilson in connection with the activities of her firm, Heather Wilson LLC, in its work for Lockheed subsidiary Sandia Corp.,” according to a letter dated Wednesday from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the National Legal & Policy Center, and Public Citizen to panel Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Ranking Member Jack Reed (D-R.I.).
The former New Mexico congresswoman was subject to an Energy Department inspector general probe in 2013 that found she earned $450,000 from DOE contractors without providing evidence that she performed work on behalf of the Sandia, Los Alamos, and Oak Ridge national laboratories and the Nevada National Security Site.
The facilities’ private contract operators subsequently repaid the amount to the federal government, but Wilson kept her fees, Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, stated Tuesday in a separate letter to McCain and Reed. She noted that the Air Force secretary would have a close business relationship with defense contractor Lockheed Martin, parent company of the current Sandia labs operator, Sandia Corp.
Brian recommended lawmakers ask a number of questions of Wilson during her confirmation hearing, scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. today. These include why Wilson has refused to offer specifics of her work for the labs, which projects she worked on at the four sites, and whether she had any role in developing the strategy that led Sandia Corp. to illegally used federal funds to lobby for an extension of its M&O contract. The contractor ultimately paid more than $4.7 million to settle the case.
