From The Senate Floor
Sen. Charles Grassley has made a special place for himself over the years as an eagle eye on the lookout for fraud, waste and abuse. By his own description, he considers his duty to watch out for taxpayers a "sacred responsibility."
In that spirit, he took the floor of the Senate yesterday to blast the process through which th General Services Administration renewed a contract last year with Sun Microsystems, the software and technology services provider. A lot of what he had to say had the feel, in the vernacular of my business, of old news; he's made many of these points before.
But Grassley's words carry weight. If he feels the need to underscore, it's worth listening.
Attentive readers will recall that Sun decided last month to cancel its relationship with the GSA. Grassley argued that Sun's move short-circuited ongoing efforts to examine the contract. (Agencies can buy the company's products through other government venues.)
His speech suggest that the whole story has not come out. It appears he delivered the remarks because a full investigative report by his staff about the arrangement will not be made public. His spokeswoman said the report cannot be released because it contains proprietary information.
"Mr. President, I come to the floor today to report that senior executives at the General Services Administration (GSA) may have failed to meet their responsibilities to the American Taxpayers.
"These issues are carefully examined in two oversight investigations conducted by my staff. These investigations have uncovered a disturbing chain of circumstances at GSA.
"In a nutshell:
"They indicate top level GSA management interfered in contract negotiations with Sun Microsystems. They put pressure on the contract officer to sign a potentially bad contract; and when he refused, they had that contract officer removed under duress. All the evidence suggests that this particular contractor had been overcharging the government for years."
Grassley alleged that Sun did not fully cooperate with auditors trying to get to the bottom of the deal.
The GSA differs with Grassley's interpretation. Here's what the agency released last night in response to his speech:
"Senator Grassley has his facts about Sun Microsystems wrong. He uses false innuendo to impugn the motives of GSA management, and based on his statement regarding his investigation of the Sun Microsystem's matter, this investigation appears to be a conspiracy looking for a theory.
"As GSA has said time and time again over the last year, we believe the Sun contract was a good deal for the taxpayer. The Sun Microsystem contract, however, is not the example of contracting irregularities that some may have hoped. The Administrator has already told Senator Grassley that she would not allow anyone to inappropriately intervene in a decision reached by a federal warranted contracting officer. There are many things GSA can do to improve government contracting, and we are working hard with Congress in this area. The Administrator will also be working hard to repair the damage caused by the Senator's vilification of a warranted, federal contracting officer and the men and women at GSA."
Sun said this:
"Senator Grassley's statement suggesting that Sun withdrew from the GSA contract prior to completing its cooperation with the audit is not based on accurate information. Sun produced all the information
requested by the contracting officer and, only after that production was complete, did we cancel the contract."
This one is not over, at least from Government Inc.'s perspective. Among other things, I wonder what Grassley's investigative report says and exactly why at least portions of it can't be released to us all?
By Robert O'Harrow |
October 17, 2007; 7:03 PM ET
GSA
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Posted by: Rude Ro | October 19, 2007 5:48 PM
Computer Associates and Federal Contracting Officers jointly helped overstate CA's financial statements to the tune of nearly $1.7 billion. CA offered "incentives" (such as contract discounts) to obtain the help of many agency contracting officers in this fraud. Even when the SEC was notified of the fraud, it failed to do anything for nearly 5 yrs. and only took action after it learned that stockholders had discovered it and the media was beginning to print articles. CA executives went to jail, but the Federal contracting officers involved were never charged since that would be embarassing.
Posted by: Bill | October 26, 2007 9:15 AM
Business as usal.
Posted by: richard | November 4, 2007 3:40 PM
Hi.
I think that alot of peaceful solution could be achieved, IF the
Washington administration and our senators and congress would
But an absolute BAN on the american companies that make and sell
"Weapons" or "Munitions of any type to all countries, people or corporations
that are not one of the branches of the american military programs.
Thanks for your time.
Charles
Great Falls Montana
Posted by: Charles Bocock | November 28, 2007 1:08 PM
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Isn't "Sun Microsystems" presently owned by "The Carlysle Group"; which as I understand some in the WH, or who 'were' in the WH have "connections" with?
Just another one of those "secret - behind-the-scenes" kinda dealings ONCE AGAIN!
If true, no wonder it's SECRETATIVE dealings!
The past several years of "Secret back-room" kind of dealings involving people in the WH, reminds me of the old "Mafia" movies - do they do "hit-jobs" too?
The movie would probably be - XXX-rated!