Riechers received $26,788 from a private contractor, Commonwealth Research, while he awaited his government appointment. The Air Force says that he was "employed in a scientific and engineering technical assistance capacity to the Air Force and made recommendations that were instrumental in engineering our acquisition transformation and continuing the Air Force’s modernization of our aging fleet." An amazing job description, considering that Reichers' only interaction with the company, other than cashing their checks, was at a Christmas party:

Riechers said in an interview that his interactions with Commonwealth Research were limited largely to a Christmas party, where he said he met company officials for the first time. "I really didn't do anything for CRI," said Riechers, now principal deputy assistant secretary for acquisition. "I got a paycheck from them." ... "We needed some way to kind of gap me," Riechers said about the temporary job. The Air Force defended the arrangement, saying Riechers was well qualified to perform the work.

Of course, anybody with a pulse is qualified for a job that consists of driving to the bank and cashing 5-figure checks.

So let's see: a man waiting for a high ranking position responsible for administering defense procurement contracts, takes free money from a defense contractor. Exactly how is this different from a bribe?

And now, the guy who took the bribe, a guy who ought to be tanned, well rested, and feeling good from his free vacation bought and paid for by a defense contractor, is found dead in his home of an apparent suicide. Usually when I come back from a 2 month paid vacation, I'm not feeling suicidal. Oh wait... I've never had a two month paid vacation from a company I never did any work for.

And who is Commonwealth Research, the contractor with free money to give away?

For one thing, it is set up as a charity, so it doesn't pay a dime in tax. I'm not sure if a subsidiary of a earmark incubator pursuing defense contracts and paying its executives hundreds of thousands of dollars squares with your conception of what a "charity" is; I can assure you that it does not square with mine.

Also, it's a subsidiary of Concurrent Technologies, an "earmark incubator", a company which was created out of an earmark, gets its revenue from earmarks, and spends hundreds of thousands in lobbying fees to get earmarks. It is headquartered in Johnstown, Pennsylvania-- Jack Murtha's district, and Murtha's history of arranging earmarks for Concurrent Technologies is well-documented, as are Cocurrent's contributions back to Murtha's campaigns. Murtha's $10 million in earmarks to Concurrent Technologies were challenged by earmark hawk Rep. Jeff Flake on the House floor during debate over the FY2008 Defense Appropriations Bill, and you can read Murtha's dissembling "defense" of earmarks to Concurrent Technologies in the Congressional Record. I actually watched that debate and recall having been embarrassed for Murtha; I even commented on it at the time.

Murtha-- and it hurts me to say this, because I've appreciated his stand on the war-- ought to be immediately suspended from his chairmanship of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee while this is being investigated. His dealings with these earmark incubators represents everything that is wrong with the appropriations process. Republican or Democrat, lawmakers need to understand that the Treasury is not their own personal piggybank which they can use to dole out lucrative favors to their campaign-contributing friends. Democratic leadership has a long way to go to prove to me that we weren't just sold a bill of goods on earmark reform, because Murtha's earmarks to Concurrent Technologies do not seem to fit in at all with the earmark reform that we were promised by our Democratic Congress.

Oh-- one more thing that caught my eye: Riechers' predecessor in the Air Force procurement office, Darleen Druyun, got prison time for steering billions in defense contracts to Boeing while she was actively negotiating for a job with Boeing. So that ought to let you know that Riechers' new position was very important to defense contractors. UPDATE: blonde moment, in the comments, noted that a new Washington Post article has another Boeing angle, one that ties in with Concurrent Technologies: