A cavalcade of retired senior American military officers have landed high-paying advisory contracts with Australia's Department of Defence, with one former admiral paid $US5,000 a day for his expertise.
Australian government records state the year-long contract for his "advisory services" began in November 2022 and was awarded without tender "due to an absence of competition for technical reasons".
Last week Australia's defence department confirmed another former vice-admiral, William Hilarides, has been paid almost $2.5 million for advice given through the Naval Shipbuilding Advisory Board and Naval Shipbuilding Expert Advisory Panel since 2016.
One of the more intriguing revelations from the Pentagon records is that the former US director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who resigned after Donald Trump's election as president in 2016, was then paid to work for Australia's new Office of National Intelligence. In 2017, the United States Air Force veteran — who had served as under secretary of defence for Intelligence —and addressed the National Press Club in Canberra.
According to the newly released Pentagon records, Mr Clapper then in 2018 received an undisclosed sum to work with the Office of National Intelligence in Canberra, which was formally established in December of that year.as a single point of intelligence coordination which would bring Australia into line with its Five Eyes partners the US and UK.
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