I hired into Lockheed in 67 and for most of my career the defense contractor business had its ups and downs but gradually declined. (Note the number of mergers of which Martin Marietta play a major role.) This was all part of the fall of the Soviet Union and the shifting of the public’s awareness of defense needs. (I had friends who said why build a defense missile system, we don’t have enemies?) Well we never really lost our enemies but the business did decline.
What happenes with Comey and Mueller is the same thing that just happened with Netflix and Susan Rice. People in government are not paid in up front bribes, they are promised lucrative postings out of government. (Comey made his and then went back to FBI as a very wealthy man)
But I agree with you, (and I worked with Martin people after the merger) it was awesome. KC
This happens at so many levels in the defense sector, and I suppose other areas such as that bloated administrative turkey DHS,. What I saw at much humbler levels was that if you were an O-5 or GS-12/13/14 and wanted to work for a contractor after retiring you better be known as a very cooperative team player. If one was an O-6 or above or a GS/M-15 or SES the requirement was to be directly cooperative with contractors on whatever they wanted to do. There are stiff rules keeping people from going to work for a company they had contractual dealings with. However, contractors share information about people and the kiss of death was for the contractor you were working with to put out the word to the brethren that you were ‘difficult or uncooperative’ to deal with.