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Kelly Says He’ll Quit Advisory Positions with Defense Contractors

Retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly has pledged to quit advisory and board member roles with defense contractors and consulting firms if he is confirmed as Homeland Security secretary, according to disclosures filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. 

Kelly appears before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee for his confirmation hearing Tuesday afternoon.

Since June 2016, the retired four-star general has been an advisor to DynCorp International, a McLean, Va.-based defense contractor that provides a range of logistics services to the Pentagon and a host of other U.S. federal agencies, as well as foreign militaries. In his disclosures, Kelly listed an income of $166,666 from the company.

DynCorp has a multi-billion-dollar logistics contract with the Pentagon and performs a range of work in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Kelly also is on the board of DC Capital Partners, a Washington-based private equity firm that invests in companies focused on defense and homeland security.

Kelly also has been an advisor since October at Beacon Global Strategies, a Washington-based consulting firm started by Jeremy Bash, chief of staff to former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, and Philippe Reines, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s aide and confidante. Panetta also is a counselor at Beacon, as is former Deputy CIA Director Michael Morrell. Kelly previously was Panetta’s top military assistant at the Pentagon.

In addition to resigning from those roles, if confirmed, Kelly said in his disclosures he would recuse himself from any decisions involving the companies for a period of one year.

Unlike many of President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees, Kelly, a former Marine four-star general who served four decades in the military and last commanded the U.S. Southern Command, is not wealthy. He listed bank accounts totaling no more than $300,000 and a residential home valued at about $250,000 that is also under a 30-year mortgage.

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