Former Air National Guard director under investigation
Pentagon inspector general investigating allegations of federal ethics violations by retired Maj. Gen. Paul Weaver.
The Pentagon's inspector general is investigating whether the Air National Guard's former director violated federal ethics law by accepting a job as a lobbyist with Boeing Co. only three months after he retired from the military, officials and the former director said.
Boeing hired retired Maj. Gen. Paul Weaver in May 2002 as part of a full-court press for support for a now-defunct $23 billion deal to lease aerial refueling tankers to the Air Force.
That deal was shelved after conflict of interest charges that brought jail terms for Boeing's former chief financial officer and the Air Force's top acquisition officer. Senate Armed Services Committee leaders, in a May 13 letter, asked the Pentagon to investigate whether Weaver failed to observe a one-year, federally mandated "cooling off" period before lobbying the officials and agency he worked for.
Weaver told Bloomberg News he did nothing wrong in lobbying state adjutants general for the tankers. He cited an opinion from National Guard Bureau Chief Counsel and Ethics Adviser James C. Hise as showing those contacts were not covered by the law.
"I'm not the least bit concerned," Weaver said.