Panel I of a Hearing of the House Armed Services Committees Air and Land Forces Subcommittee - The Source Selection and Path Forward Regarding the Air Force KC-(X) Program

Statement

REP. ROGERS: Thanks.

That was a perfect segue in what I want to talk about, and that is -- I will limit my comments to process. I understand that's all that you reviewed. And you did say "could have" -- there's no evidence that you found, from my reading of this, that these seven or eight points where there's a deviation in process did, in fact, change the outcome. Is that correct?

MR. GORDON: That's right.

MR. GOLDEN: That's right.

REP. ROGERS: You were not saying that Boeing should have been selected?

MR. GORDON: That was not what we were saying in the report.

MR. GOLDEN: What we said in the report is it meets the legal standard of showing prejudice. That doesn't mean that the result would necessarily change.

REP. ROGERS: Right. Right. Now, let me make it clear, I know you've touched on this a couple of times. There is no evidence that bribes were offered this time around in the bidding in this contract. Is that correct?

MR. GORDON: That's absolutely correct, neither bribes nor any other criminal conduct.

REP. ROGERS: No malfeasance, no impropriety of any kind that Northrop demonstrated in the winning of this contract?

MR. GORDON: No evidence whatsoever of --

REP. ROGERS: Was there any intention --

MR. GORDON: -- intentional impropriety.

REP. ROGERS: -- (off mike) -- process, in the way of misbehavior's concerned.

MR. GORDON: We saw no evidence of intentional misconduct.

REP. ROGERS: Okay. And I also want to make the point -- I know several folks have wanted to talk about the merits of the contract being issued to Northrop. And I know we're going to talk more about that on the next panel. But you found nothing as to the merits of which plane is better or not.

MR. GORDON: That's right. Nothing in our decision should be read to say that the Northrop plane is better or the Boeing plane is better.

REP. ROGERS: In this process, the Air Force is the customer. Is that correct?

MR. GORDON: In the sense that they're making a purchase, yes, sir.

REP. ROGERS: They're making a purchase. And the Air Force selected the Northrop Grumman plane. And from what I read, there's no evidence that there was impropriety in the way they made their selection. So you're not saying they didn't get the best plane.

MR. GORDON: We're not expressing an opinion about it one way or the other.

REP. ROGERS: All right. I want to go back to a point that you were talking about with Mr. Miller, and that is the number of issues. We had a briefing with your office a couple of weeks ago that was not public. And there was a specific number of protests that were offered by Boeing. Do you know that number?

MR. GORDON: It depends what you mean. I mean, there were eight protests that were filed -- one moment. (Conferring off mike.)

Are you talking about the -- I think I identified 22 --

REP. ROGERS: Correct.

MR. GORDON: -- major issues --

REP. ROGERS: That's my point.

MR. GORDON: -- at that briefing.

REP. ROGERS: here were 22 issues that they visited as being possible --

MR. GORDON: And I pointed out there were subsets and other arguments related to those -- those major --

REP. ROGERS: So that may have been where the 100 or so items came from that Mr. Miller referenced.

MR. GORDON: You know, I keep reading it. I've seen it even higher at time, to be honest with you. You know, we looked at everything. We didn't spend a lot of time counting. We had to deal with all the issues in the protest.

REP. ROGERS: But of the 22 that were offered, you found 14 that there was no problem?

MR. GORDON: I'm not sure we would count them that way. I think that the issues are integrated. It's hard to divide them in the way people would like to. We found seven issues that we sustained, that we found in favor of the protest, that we found problems with the procurement.

REP. ROGERS: I guess the point that I'm wanting to leave here with knowing is that you folks just dealt with process. You're just -- legal team, looking at the process, and that you're not making any statement that the wrong plane was selected or that this process deviation in fact changed the outcome or would have changed the outcome. You're just saying that it could have, but there's no evidence of impropriety or criminal behavior or anything that would lead somebody looking at this to go, well, but for those seven items, Boeing would've won this contract.

MR. GORDON: I think we've been pretty clear in the written testimony and in our testimony today that we did not -- our job is not to evaluate the merits of the plane, okay, or decide which plane. What we focus on is violations. Our role is to look and examine when a protest is filed, deal with allegations of violations of law or regulations in the selection process.

REP. ROGERS: Yeah. Well, and that's my point. I hear -- (inaudible) -- my colleagues and folks in the private sector who point at this as if there was a -- you know, it was like the last contract, where there was all this improper behavior. And that's not what I've been reading from -- hearing from you all, in our private briefing or in this one, and that's just there were seven deviations in process that may or may not have made any difference at all.

Source