By Emelie Rutherford
The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) approved late yesterday afternoon President Obama’s nomination of Raytheon [RTN] executive William Lynn to be deputy defense secretary.
Lynn’s confirmation could be challenged in the full Senate by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), who is concerned about Lynn’s past lobbying for Raytheon and work as Pentagon chief financial officer in the Clinton administration.
Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, also has questioned a waiver the White House issued two weeks ago allowing Lynn to bypass two sections of President Obama’s new ethics-related executive order. The sections ban government appointees for two years from working for agencies and on issue areas they lobbied, and from participating in matters related to their former employers; Lynn, though, is still subject to other ethics restrictions because of his Raytheon work.
Grassley in letters quizzed Lynn and the White House on these areas of concern. He still has reservations after receiving letters dated Feb. 3 from the nominee and executive branch answering questions he posed.
“Mr. Lynn’s past performance at the Department of Defense raises many concerns for Senator Grassley, let alone the possible conflicts of interest with a big time defense contractor that have been brought to the attention of the American people by President Obama’s new executive order on this issue,” Grassley’s spokeswoman told reporters in an e- mail Wednesday afternoon.
“Senator Grassley will be detailing all of this prior to Senate consideration of Mr. Lynn’s nomination,” she said.
The SASC favorably reported, by a voice vote, the nomination of Lynn and three other Obama nominations: Robert Hale to be Pentagon comptroller and chief financial officer, Michele Flourney to be under secretary of defense for policy choice, and Jeh Charles Johnson to be Pentagon general counsel. The nominations were reported immediately to the Senate floor, according to a committee statement issued early yesterday evening.