Crony Capitalism Spreads to DOD

Surely it's just coincidence that an American company would be denied a chance to bid on a Department of Defense contract that was shipped off shore to a George Soros affiliated company. Of the twenty green energy loans doled out by the Department of Energy 16 of them went to Obama campaign contributors which is also coincidence. The latest bit of Obama malfeasance is the contract for a new attack aircraft which went to Brazilian company Embraer which is currently under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Justice Department, for possible violations of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Embraer is accused of engaging in bribery in three countries, none of which have been identified publicly. If found guilty, the company could be banned from doing any business with the US government at all. The SEC’s investigation of Embraer went public about three weeks before the Air Force disqualified Hawker Beechcraft without explanation. The Air Force refused to let the American competitor, Hawker Beechcraft, even bid on the project even though there were several advantages to allowing it to have the bid.

• The AT-6 is designed and manufactured in the US to be used by the US and its allies.


• Keeping this contract in the U.S. will help preserve 1,400 domestic jobs at 181 companies in 39 states.


• The AT-6 draws its heritage from the airframe of the number-one training aircraft in the world, the Beechcraft T-6. The company has built more than 725 T-6 aircraft, which are used to train every fixed-wing military pilot in the United States and are successfully operated by six allied air forces around the world. The graduation to the AT-6 light attack airplane would be a natural progression.


• The AT-6 is the sum of the Air Force's proven T-6, A-10C mission system and MC-12W sensor suite, which offers the Department of Defense logistics and cost efficiencies that no other aircraft in the competition can match.


• The weapons and avionics systems included on the AT-6 are familiar to NATO allies and have been proven effective on many continents and in other NATO aircraft.

Not going quietly Hawker Beechcraft has filed suit in the Court of Federal Claims following notification late last week that the Government Accountability Office has declined to review its protest of the decision by the U.S. Air Force to exclude the company's Beechcraft AT-6 from the Light Air Support competition.