Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has raised questions about whether parts of the Department of Defense (DOD) could be “too cozy” with private investment firms.
Ms. Warren, who serves as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, broached her concerns in a July 9 letter (pdf) to Heidi Shyu, under secretary of defense for research and engineering at the DOD’s Office of Strategic Capital (OSC), in which the senator asserted there’s a lack of safeguards to “prevent conflicts of interests.”
“While I understand that one of the objectives of OSC is to ‘improve the government’s relationship with the venture community,’ I am concerned that this is resulting in a conflation of interests that creates clear conflicts,” Ms. Warren said….