WASHINGTON DC (July 8, 2019) — Senator Charles "Chuck" Grassley released the following statement regarding the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General’s (DoDOIG) announcement that it has re-opened its investigation into the contracting firm TransDigm Group, Inc.
“Earlier this year, we learned about a small portion of TransDigm’s spare parts contracts with the Defense Department. The DoDIG reviewed 47 parts that the Department purchased from TransDigm, on 113 contracts, between January 2015 and January 2017. After reviewing these contracts for price reasonableness, DoDIG determined that TransDigm had overcharged the Department by $16.1 million on a total of $29.7 million in contracts.
“As the old saying goes, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And there’s a lot of smoke coming from TransDigm. I’m glad to see the DoDIG is re-opening its investigation into this company to root out any additional waste, fraud and abuse that squanders tax-payer dollars and shortchanges our men and women in uniform.”
Sen Grassley has been a watchdog against waste, fraud and abuse at the DoD for nearly four decades. Sen Grassley’s extensive oversight work throughout his career has included a dogged pursuit for answers from the Pentagon over decades of wasteful spending and its inability to produce a clean financial audit.
Most recently, spurred by reports of TransDigm’s egregious price-gouging, Sen Grassley sent a letter to former Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick M Shanahan seeking information about how the DoD contracts with businesses and other entities in overpricing. Sem Grassley also inquired about the DoD’s process to collect cost data from those entities and how Congress can help DoD in stopping price-gouging practices.
Earlier this year, Sen Grassley pressed the DoD on why it was purchasing cups that cost $1,280 each. Last year, Grassley sent a letter to Department of Defense Principal Deputy Inspector General Glenn A Fine seeking answers on why the department was wasting $14,000 of taxpayer money on individual toilet seat covers. Sen Grassley has also worked to hold the Defense Department accountable for its excessive and largely unaccounted for spending in Afghanistan, including a $43 million gas station.
