President of the future (and past), Donald Trump, has unsurprisingly made headlines with his latest choices for cabinet members. Is it another alleged sex trafficker? No, that’s Matt Gaetz. Is it an alleged sexual assaulter? No, that’s Pete Hegseth. His latest choice is a billionaire named Stephen Feinberg, who donated to the Trump campaign and is tied to one of the most scandalous government contracted companies of all time. Conflict of interest? Probably!
Feinberg, who’s worth a reported $5 billion, was reportedly picked to be the country’s deputy Defense secretary. His experience to qualify him for such a position? None. He has zero experience. Does that matter? Probably! That’s right, a billionaire with no previous Pentagon experience will slide right into the second highest-ranking job at the Pentagon.
Feinberg does have some military experience, in that his private equity firm, Cerberus Capital Management, has investments in both Navistar Defense, a military vehicle manufacturing company, and companies involved in military aircraft maintenance and training. To make this clear: a man who has a lot of money tied up in military contracts is going to be the second-in-command at the center of the government’s military complex.
This year, he launched Cerberus Venture One. Guess what that venture invests in? You got it – defense technology.
It’s probably not a stretch to say that companies in Feinberg’s orbit are about to get some sweet government contracts, considering Feinberg’s new gig centers around tech development and budgeting of the military. Sure, we could be getting all worked up for nothing. Government contracting to private agencies rarely goes wrong, right?
In 2017, Cerberus owned a company called DynCorp. That company has a fun history with the U.S. military. Let’s take a look back to those innocent, dreamy-eyed years of 2004, when a DynCorp was contracted by the government to train Iraqi police. No problems there, right? Wrong. DynCorp overcharged the government to the point where the United States filed a complaint against the company through the Department of Justice.
“Attempting to take advantage of the American taxpayers in times of war is a shameful abuse of this responsibility,” the DOJ said at the time. Oh, and DynCorp was also involved in a sex scandal in 1999 in Bosnia, where employees were alleged to be in the market of buying and selling girls, some as young as 12.
In 2009, DynCorp contractors paid 15-year-old boys to entertain them with lap dances. You can’t make this stuff up. Does this mean that Feinberg will continue this tradition? Not necessarily, but it does mean he will have the power to do so.
Feinberg would need to be approved by the Senate to take up his new role, which shouldn’t be too difficult considering Trump’s other nominees are eating up all the headlines. There’s also the little fact that Republicans have a majority in the Senate.
During Trump’s last tenure, Feinberg served as the head of the president’s intelligence advisers board. He got that sweet gig after a donation of a whopping $1 million to a Trump Super Pac in the waning days of the 2016 campaign. It’s a good thing Trump picks his nominees based on merit.