Christopher Kirchhoff: belief

Transcript context

…No sushi, exactly. Here’s a couple more pernicious examples. One of my first jobs for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Marty Dempsey, when he took over in 2012, a year of incredible technological changes — he wanted to go visit Silicon Valley, meet with venture capitalists, go to Google, meet with start-ups, and see the kind of commercial technology that people were telling him would make a difference in the battlefield. So, we organized a phenomenal trip for him to Silicon Valley that really shaped how he, as he was taking over the chairmanship, shaped his agenda as chairman. We get back from that trip, and I get a phone call from General Dempsey’s EA (Executive Assistant), and it says, “Chris, can you write me a couple of pages of justification for the Silicon Valley trip we just took?” I thought, “Oh my gosh.” Sure enough, somebody had filed a complaint with the inspector general that we had spent government dollars to take a boondoggle to California, and the IG was deciding whether or not to investigate. Here’s a much more serious example. Mike Brown, the second director of Defense Innovation Unit, the former CEO of Symantec, the largest cybersecurity in the world — somebody who really understands software, which is now the most important element of any military weapons systems — was, in a remarkable act of leadership and foresight, nominated by President Biden to become the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, the lead weapons buyer in the Pentagon, somebody responsible for driving how nearly $300 billion of the Pentagon’s budget is spent on weapons. Just days before his confirmation hearing was scheduled, in the news, bubbled up this whistleblower complaint that had been filed at Defense Innovation Unit weeks or months earlier, maybe even years earlier, alleging that he misused hiring authorities to try and pay engineers in Silicon Valley close to market rate so they could come to work for the government — which, by the way, was the mission of Defense Innovation Unit, to bring technologists into the government. It also alleged, among other irregularities, that the office snack fund called Snacko had an insufficient basis of cash accounting. The person writing the complaint was a former Comptroller employee. Receiving this complaint that their director had potentially violated Department of Defense policy, the Defense Innovation Unit general counsel undertook an exhaustive investigation, published an 82-page report, found no substance to any of the allegations that had been met. You would think, case closed. At that time, the inspector general decided not to investigate. The Pentagon’s general counsel said, “Fine, you’ve looked into it. There are complaints all over the place. Case closed.” On the eve of his nomination, this surfaces again. The whistleblower goes to the media; again, it surfaces in a couple of articles; and he had to end up withdrawing. all over the place. Case closed.” On the eve of his nomination, this surfaces again. The whistleblower goes to the media; again, it surfaces in a couple of articles; and he had to end up withdrawing. He had done nothing wrong, but somebody weaponized the inspector general system against him. We’re in the situation where good-minded public servants who are doing the right thing, who have done nothing wrong, are caught in this just bizarre process of persecution that runs at its own civil-servant speed. I think that’s one of many factors, including, frankly, the Civil Service Act, that is making the talent base of the US government erode. Why is it that governments like Singapore are so much further ahead of the United States in terms of the talent that they’re able to bring to their governments? It’s not just salaries, although that’s a big part of it. It’s part of the burden that you undergo by becoming a public servant. So more formally, if you’re given the chance to restructure the status of whistleblowers, what would you change to make it better?…

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