So are the Democrats serious about cleaning up corruption?
Hint: the new chairman of the Committee of Homeland Security and Government Affairs is Joe Lieberman. Sigh.
And as Rumsfeld gets ready to offload all his US$25 million in Gilead Sciences stock, TPMmuckraker has a copy of the new Defense secretary nominee's financial disclosure forms.
Perhaps of greatest interest ot the public, Gates holds a total of between $450,000 and $1 million worth of stock options in companies he advises, including Parker Drilling Company, restaurant group Brinker International, and NACCO Industries.
NACCO has roughly $30 million in Department of Defense contracts, according to FedSpending.org. Conflict? The government's ethics police allowed the last Defense chief, Donald Rumsfeld, to hold on to stock worth up to $25 million in a company, Gilead Sciences; its business with the Pentagon soared after Rumsfeld took over, according to the LATimes. (He cleared $5 million on the deal, the paper found.)
According to its Web site, Parker Drilling, an oil services company, has operations around the world including Kuwait, Russia, Kazakhstan and Colombia. Since 1994, the company has worked with Halliburton on a Chinese offshore drilling effort.
