In the run-up to these discussions, OMB's Robin Cleveland had sent the résumé for her brother, Peter, then a law student, to Roche on May 9, 2003, saying: I would appreciate anything you can do to help with NG [Northrop Grumman]. Within an hour, Roche forwarded the e-mail to Stephen Yslas, a senior Northrop lawyer, at the firm's Los Angeles headquarters:
STEVE -- I know this guy. He is good. His sister (Robin)is in charge of defense and intell at OMB. . . . If Peter Cleveland looks good to you, PLS add my endorsement. Be well.
Roche then forwarded a copy of his e-mail to Cleveland, saying: Be well. Smile. Give tankers now (Oops, did I say that?. . .). Cleveland, for her part, congratulated her brother a week later on getting a job interview with Northrop, telling him in an e-mail: Hope it works before the tanker leasing issue get[s] fouled up.
Northrop in the end did not hire Cleveland's brother, and by July 8, the Air Force was less solicitous of her. Sambur on that day sent Roche an e-mail saying: It is worth a shot speaking to Robin, or are you like me in that you would rather take poison?
Cleveland declined to comment through OMB spokesman Chad Kolton. He said that after the e-mail exchange about the job was discovered and shared with Senate investigators two months ago, OMB Director Joshua B. Bolton sent it to the Justice Department to check for compliance with conflict-of-interest statutes; no result has been announced.
Various e-mails make clear that leasing enthusiasts repeatedly assured top Pentagon officials that the deal was cost-effective and untainted by scandal. Despite the internal budget critiques, a special assistant to the defense secretary, Richard Greco Jr. -- now the Navy comptroller -- said in a January 2003 memo to Wolfowitz that the price is essentially neutral to a buy.
After Boeing fired executive Darleen A. Druyun on Nov. 24, 2003, for violating its ethics rules -- but before she pleaded guilty in court to raising the tanker price as a gift to Boeing while serving as Sambur's principal deputy -- Sambur told Air Force Undersecretary Peter Teets that a thorough review of the Darlene situation had been completed, and . . . there was no way Darlene had had any influence on the leasing plan, according to an e-mail on Nov. 27, 2003, from Teets to Roche.
When asked about the controversy at a news conference last week, Rumsfeld laid most of the blame on Druyun and the fact that she had "very little adult supervision above, below or on the side" while she steered contracting benefits to Boeing. He added, "I'm told that when Secretary Roche and Assistant Secretary Sambur came in, they looked at that situation, were uncomfortable with it, and began taking authorities away from her and trying to reestablish a different arrangement.
"Obviously," Rumsfeld added, "there's something needs to be changed."
