Pentagon reworks disclosure rule for 'senior mentors'

[unhappycamper]

Pentagon reworks disclosure rule for 'senior mentors'
By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has weakened financial disclosure rules for highly paid retired generals and admirals who advise the military, documents show.

So-called senior mentors will not have to disclose their business ties or finances to the public, under a directive issued from Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn on July 8. That falls below what Defense Secretary Robert Gates initially called for on April 1 when he issued a new policy to restrict the mentors' pay and eliminate conflicts of interest.

Lynn's directive is not a change in policy, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said in an e-mail. Whitman noted that Gates' rule says nothing about public financial disclosure.

However, the fact sheet that the Pentagon issued with Gates' policy in April states that mentors who work more than 60 days in a year and are paid more than $119,554 "must file a public financial disclosure report. Others file the confidential financial disclosure report."

The Pentagon based the change to private financial disclosures on advice from the Office of Government Ethics, Whitman said. The private disclosures will identify conflicts, he said.