McDARVID LOOKED THROUGH THE ATTACHMENTS to his letter to the Ethics Committee. Heidlinger would be furious, but it couldn’t be helped. He needed the law firm’s letterhead on this one.
Attachment 1 was a chronological summary of the legislation authorizing the development and deployment of the earth observation satellites.
Attachment 2 was the highlighted language in the committee report accompanying the authorizing legislation: “… in the interests of geographically balanced procurement, at least one advanced inertial terrain scanning system shall be procured from a vendor located east of the Mississippi River and at least one from a vendor located west of the Mississippi.”
Harmless enough, except Hesterton Engineering was the single competing vendor located in the West.
Attachment 3 was the summary of the NASA evaluation of the TRICOM and Hesterton systems, the evaluation which indicated TRICOM’s superiority in price, delivery times, and satellite systems experience.
Attachment 4 was the Hesterton Engineering organization chart, listing Michael Alroy as the Washington, D.C., representative reporting directly to the President of Hesterton.
Attachment 5 was the subcommittee organization chart, listing Renni Fowler as the counsel and staff director.
Attachment 6 was the article from The Legal Times about the unsuccessful motion by Hartwicke, Fowler, and Prestigan on behalf of Hesterton Engineering contesting the original award of the inertial system to TRICOM.
Attachment 7 was a copy of Renni Fowler’s ethics form.
Attachment 8 comprised Michael Alroy’s federal lobbying reports for the past three years.
McDarvid read through the letter again, skimming the key points.
… clear and obvious conflict of interest … not reported according to the requirements of the committee and of the Ethics in Government Act … integrity of procurement process compromised … casts doubt upon the integrity of the subcommittee’s actions with regard to all space efforts … failure to address obstacles to development of resources in space …
… request an investigation of the events chronicled in Attachment 1 … and public disclosure of the committee’s findings …
McDarvid shook his head. It would have been so much easier if Renni had just agreed to hold one damned hearing on the metals initiative. He hoped the Ethics Committee would do something, but he wasn’t counting on it. That was why he had the pictures he still didn’t want to use. At least, the damned telephoto lens was back with Jonnie, presumably returned to his sister.
With a sigh, he sealed the envelope for the messenger.