ITAR and EAR were built to keep U.S. military and dual-use technology from strengthening countries that could use it against the United States or its allies, like Europe
There is nothing illegal about using a contractor lawyer for both commercial work and your own business provided you get it reviewed by Ethics & Govt General Counsel. As this was done then I see no issue in it.
There is a potential COI mentioned below, for which Feinberg agreed to donate the profits to charity, if such a settlement happens. The guy is from a Whiteshoe law firm anyways, the allocated funds are tiny, and this seems pretty above board.
Much ado about nothing!
> In a statement to the Prospect, the Department of Defense wrote that the arrangement was aboveboard. “OSC [DOD’s Office of Strategic Capital, which leads the Pentagon’s rare earths investments] maintains a rigorous, multi-layered ethics framework that includes a detailed screening process and operates in full compliance with all federal ethics laws and regulations,” the statement said. The DOD did not comment on whether Waldenberg is involved in other Pentagon activities, or specify its ethics protocols. Waldenberg’s firm, according to the federal government’s public contracting database, has a contract with the DOD worth $1.5 million that runs through August 31, 2026.
> The DOD has said that “any profit [Feinberg] may receive from a potential Ligado settlement will go to a charity to support America’s veterans,” though a spokesperson declined to say which charity would receive the prospective donation. The Capitol Forum recently reported that Ligado is hoping to receive $5 billion from the feds, citing sources familiar with the case. That would surpass the federal government’s 2010 $3.4 billion settlement with Native American tribes, compensating them for the centuries-old confiscation of tribal lands.
I agree that from the perspective of a business owner this would seem very normal. "I need legal services for X, and I happen to know and trust a very good outside counsel for this" is very normal. Additionally, law firms have super robust conflict of interest policies so you can expect this would have been reviewed in details.
However, I think this story brings up two important topics:
1. It is important that high level government officials avoid not just actual conflicts of interest but also the APPEARANCE of a conflict of interest.
2. The Trump administration has taken a much more liberal approach to conflicts of interest than most admins, and this has undermined trust in government. The fact that this story got people so riled up is a great illustration of it. This is not good for the country!
This is just third world level of open corruption. If nothing is done against it, things will just get worse and not better.
First it will signal to all the lower level officials that corruption is ok. The next step isn't just corruption is ok, but it is expected. No corruption means you won't get far in your career.
I read a book and learned something, did I "borrow" or "distill"?
I read info from a website without their consent, then learned something, and now I am teaching that knowledge to others, did I "borrow", "steal", "distill" or doing piracy be selling it?
I’m happy to see our metrics being improved because much of the economic policy seems to have been based around what was good for boomers.
Not what was good for young people who, for the most part, can’t afford to live in houses and these days are getting ripped off with overly expensive apartments too, so they never have a chance to buy a house and build equity.
Local Private AI will kill off both Chinese Open Weights corporate AI as well as American proprietary corporate AI because they are not competitive on:
It is only now in human history that we are able to create nearly perfect copies, and we’ve been taxed incredibly for this with overpriced everything.
reply