It could be simpler than that. I seem to recall that John Murtha's replacement as Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee is the Congressman from Seattle.
He's known as the Congressman from Boeing...Norm Dicks, who's from a district outside Seattle.
The GAO overturned the prior award because they found the AF hadn't followed their own criteria in the award. Those criteria, BTW, had been amended after NG threatened to pull out of the process.
So, this is nothing new.