A nephew of U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., has received millions of dollars in no-bid Pentagon contracts for his company, Murtech Inc.
Robert Murtha Jr., 49, the nephew of the powerful defense appropriator from Pennsylvania, received $4 million in Defense Department contracts last year, all of them without competitive bidding, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.
The revelations come as federal investigators are reportedly looking into whether a prominent defense lobbyist and former top aide to John Murtha, Paul Magliocchetti, funneled bogus contributions to the Democratic lawmaker in return for earmarks for his clients at the now-defunct PMA Group. No charges have been brought against Murtha or Magliocchetti in that case.
Murtha’s nephew, meanwhile, got several contracts, primarily for warehousing and engineering services, from the Army Space and Missile Defense Command in Huntsville, Al. - among them, a $1.4 million-per-year deal to store materials for the military’s Critical Reagents Program.
Yet, the company’s headquarters, in a nondescript, low-slung building, “has its blinds drawn tight and few signs of life, wrote Post reporters Carol D. Leonnig and Alice Crites.
Robert Murtha told the newspaper that he is not at liberty to discuss what his company does. But he said there was nothing improper about the contracts saying, “If we’re not doing our job well, we wouldn’t be doing our job. I’m successful at the work I do because of the skill sets I have. … You don’t know how good someone is unless you work with them.”
A Pentagon spokesman denied the contracts were awarded because of John Murtha’s sway.
“Congressman Murtha has had no influence over any contract award by our organization,” the spokesman, Julius Evans, told the Post.
Robert Murtha Jr., a former Marine who once served as a presidential security officer and aide to the president for White House functions, is not the only Murtha relative in the defense business.
His father, Robert C. “Kit” Murtha, built a lucrative lobbying practice at KSA, a lobbying firm, around clients seeking defense funds through the Appropriations Committee.
And Brian Murtha, another son of Kit Murtha’s, lobbies for the U.S. Marine Corps in Washington.
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