By: Valerie Insinna
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon’s F-35 program director confirmed on Thursday that he was aware that the Boeing CEO was on the line during a Jan. 17 call from then President-elect Donald Trump.
Late last night, Bloomberg reported that Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg was present during one of Trump’s January phone calls to Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, the government’s F-35 program executive officer. According to the story, Muilenburg was in Trump’s New York office for a meeting and overheard at least the final portion of the conversation — although the report did not specify whether Muilenburg was able to hear Bogdan, or listened in only Trump’s side of the call.
Bogdan confirmed during a Feb. 16 congressional hearing that the phone call had happened, and that all three men were aware of each other’s presence and participated actively in the conversation.
“It’s important to understand that the discussion that we had were all pre-decisional,” he said during a House Armed Service Committee panel. “There were no decisions made during those conversations, and it was my belief that President-elect Trump at the time was attempting to gain more information about the F-35’s capabilities, relative to the Super Hornet.”
Trump and Bogdan also participated in an earlier Jan. 9 phone call without Muilenburg, he said.
Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Bogdan said he was careful to ensure that no proprietary or classified information was discussed in front of the Boeing CEO.
“The things that I talked about in front of Mr. Muilenburg were clearly publicly releasable information, and I understand the rules about talking about Lockheed Martin stuff in front of Mr. Muilenburg,” he said. “The reason why Mr. Muilenburg was there was because the discussion was about Advanced Super Hornets and the presidential airplane, and not necessarily F-35. So it was not inappropriate.”
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