Sadly, I think kick-backs are an integral part of our system now. We use more polite terms like PAC’s, campaign donations, or high paying jobs for relatives. There is also the promise of lucrative employment should you lose an election or decide to “retire”. Even the media/academia is in on the game now hiring those who wrongly persecuted a President. Crime pays.
Look at the revolving door at Treasury, within the Fed, or in other financial postings in the government. They often pick executives from the “too big to fail banks” who make 7 figure salaries with bonuses. These men/women leave their high paid positions to “serve the public” but then they return to the same companies they just “regulated” for even higher paid positions with larger stock options.
Many SES level government executives or military flag officers are able to line up cushy gigs or low-effort board positions that pay quite nicely when they “retire”. It’s guaranteed work and before they retire they can push contracts for think-tanks and consulting to their mentors companies with an unspoken promise that their protege’s will do the same for them.
The number of “contractor” and “consultant” positions and companies within the DC beltway has exploded in the past few decades turning Washington DC into a modern day Rome. We get a higher concentration of wealth in and around DC every single year.
If you really make the big-time hidden people will want you to ghost-write a book or produce media like the Obama’s are supposed to do for Netflix. Their benefits were worth 100 million allegedly and I doubt there is much effort on their part.
I don’t have to like Hersh, but what he is reporting is quite consistent with my understanding of the world in which we live.
The kickbacks ARE the system, and why the particular legislation or assistance is placed in play.
The actual aid received is a pittance, for show, a throw away.