Air Force Work, Contractor Pay

When you take a no-work job with a federal contractor while waiting for your civil service job at the Air Force to come through, here's what you shouldn't tell the Washington Post's Robert O'Harrow when he calls for an interview for a story he's writing:

• "I really didn't do anything for [the contractor] CRI."
• "We needed some way to kind of gap me [between jobs]."

This is especially true if the government position you're about to fill is principal deputy assistant secretary for acquisition -- and if that job needs filling because the person who previously held it ended up going to prison for negotiating a job with a contractor while she still worked for the government.

Still that's exactly what Charles Riechers told O'Harrow. And the Air Force insists it did nothing wrong in arranging for him to get the contractor pay while he was actually working for the service.