Admiral Robert Burke rose to the highest rank possible in the 21st century US Navy: 4 stars. When Burke retired in 2022 after 39 years in the Navy, he was just 62. His base pay on retirement was about $187,000. His retirement pay would have been 87 percent of that. Not Elon Musk money, but Burke had the benefit of living a life of command that, as the Navy’s second-highest ranking officer, had other perks like significant housing stipends and other benefits. The DOJ alleges that, for Burke, it also meant a massive bribe in the form of private employment for procuring Navy contracts.
On May 31st, Burke, along with two co-conspirators, were arrested in what seemed to me to be one of the dumbest, most obvious bribery schemes possible. Robert Menendez is a mastermind compared to Burke and his co-defendants.
In 2021, Burke was commanding Naval operations in Europe, Russia, and most of Africa. In the summer of 2021, Burke met with two people who ran a company called Jump Start. The meeting happened in Washington, D.C. Jump Start had provided a workforce training pilot program to a “small component” of the Navy between August 2018 and July 2019. For reasons unknown, the company contract was terminated.
Jump Start and its employees were specifically told by the Navy that the company had to stop all communication with Admiral Burke. Apparently, that didn’t dissuade Jump Start’s two “co-CEOs,” Meghan Messenger and “Charlie” Kim. They met with Burke in July of 2021 and, according to the Department of Justice:
At the meeting, the charged defendants allegedly agreed that Burke would use his position as a Navy Admiral to steer a sole-source contract to [Jump Start] in exchange for future employment at the company. They allegedly further agreed that Burke would use his official position to influence other Navy officers to award another contract to [Jump Start] to train a large portion of the Navy with a value Kim allegedly estimated to be “triple-digit millions.”
Five months later, while Burke was still in command of Naval Operations overseas, he allegedly directed his staff to award Jump Start a $355,000 contract to train Naval personnel in Italy and Spain. That contract lasted just two months. Then Burke allegedly puffed up Jump Start to another senior Navy Admiral, and that’s when the dominos started to fall. The DOJ claims that Burke tried to cover his tracks with false and misleading statements to investigators. As the walls started closing in, Burke claimed that he had no role in issuing the Jump Start contract, and then “allegedly” lied about it when he was approached for employment at Jump Start. Burke told investigators that his post-Navy employment discussions started only after the Jump Start contract was awarded.
If an Admiral retires after 40 years, they receive in retirement, 100 percent of the average of their last 36 months base pay as their retirement pay. But Burke (oddly) retired one year short of 40. After 39 years of “service,” Burke was immediately hired by Jump Start with a $500,000 salary. It may have been unwise for Jump Start to, well, “jump-start” Burke’s employment. It seems pretty obvious to me what was going on, but Jump Start proudly announced Burke’s hire on Twitter.
We are delighted to welcome Bob Burke as a Senior Partner at Next Jump! He joins our team of world experts in growing Next Jump’s human performance community. Bob brings a wealth of leadership experience from serving four decades in the US Navy. pic.twitter.com/9d7jpzYATm
— Next Jump (@nextjump) October 17, 2022
Not a genius move, it seems.
On Friday, all three of the conspirators were arrested.
Jump Start still lists Messenger and Kim as Jump Start officers. Burke is not listed on the “leadership team” page, although he was hired as a “senior partner.”
If convicted, Burke is looking at 30 years in federal prison. Kim and Messenger face only 20 years behind bars. The bad news for Kim and Messenger is that, if convicted, they likely won’t be collecting pensions. If convicted, Burke will still collect his government pension while he sits in prison. But sadly for Burke, his Jump Start salary of $500,000 a year is sunk.
