IG investigates Shanahan about Boeing's comments

The Pentagon inspector general has opened an investigation into Boeing's bias reported by acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, the IG's office said Wednesday.

"The Office of the Inspector General of the Ministry of Defense has decided to investigate the complaints we recently received that Acting Secretary Patrick Shanahan has taken steps to promote his former employer, Boeing, and denigrate its competitors, in supposedly violating the rules of ethics, "said DoD IG spokesman Dwrena Allen said.

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"In his recent testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Acting Secretary Shanahan said that he supports an investigation into these allegations," she said. "We informed him that we had opened this investigation."

On March 13, the independent Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics monitoring group in Washington requested the opening of an investigation based on a January report by POLITICO that Shanahan, while he was deputy secretary at Defense, denigrating Lockheed Martin at meetings at the Pentagon and invoking Boeing.

A former senior Defense Department official who attended one of the meetings said the Lockheed Martin F-35 program was "angry" and said the company "did not know how to run a program."

In the Pentagon, Shanahan's spokesman said the interim secretary welcomed an inquiry when he appeared before senators last week.

"Acting Secretary Shanahan has always maintained her commitment to abide by the DoD's ethics agreement," said Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Buccino. "This agreement ensures that all matters relating to Boeing are handled by the appropriate Pentagon authorities in order to eliminate any perceived or actual conflict of interest with Boeing."

Before coming to the Pentagon, Shanahan, an engineer by training, worked for Boeing for 31 years, mainly on the civil aviation side. He signed an ethics agreement recusing decisions involving Boeing.

In December, Bloomberg announced that Shanahan had pressured the Air Force to buy Boeing F-15Xs, although the Air Force said they were not interested.