Adm. Robert P. Burke, 62. (U.S. Navy)
A career Pentagon official who had a romantic relationship with a married four-star admiral could become a key government witness against him, according to his lawyer and court filings in a high-profile U.S. military corruption case that accuses the admiral of steering work to a New York company in exchange for post-retirement employment.
The woman is the only uncharged person who attended a key lunch meeting in July 2021, where prosecutors allege the Navy’s former second-highest-ranking officer, Adm. Robert P. Burke, 62, agreed with two executives to award a sole-source contract and help win further Navy business for their company in exchange for a $500,000-a-year job and stock options after he retired.
In a court filing calling attention to the relationship, attorneys for the two executives charged with bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery with Burke say he misled them into believing his romantic partner was there to vet the propriety of the deal, and claimed he had also previously discussed promoting their technology services firm, Next Jump, in the presence of other defense officials.
Three months before the lunch meeting, Burke had broached the idea in the presence of another “high-ranking DOD official” of acting as an “ambassador” for the firm seeking government business while he was the Navy’s top commander in Europe and Africa, the executives’ filing said. There would be no problem with strict Pentagon revolving-door ethics rules meant to prevent conflicts of interest, he assured them, because Next Jump was not technically “a defense contractor,” because it provided executive leadership training, not warfighting materiel such as weapons or parts, the filing said.
The earlier meeting and his relationship with a key potential witness to the forging of the alleged bribery scheme were disclosed Friday in a court filing by Next Jump co-chief executives Charlie Kim, 50, and Meghan Messenger, 47. All three defendants have pleaded not guilty, questioning the logic of offering a $500,000-a-year job for what was ultimately a $355,000 sole-source award, and denying that Burke’s other actions for future business warrant his becoming only the second and senior-most U.S. admiral to be charged with committing a federal crime while on active duty.
Seeking to be tried separately, the executives’ defense argues that Burke’s statements in the presence of other officials show they relied in good faith on his assurances that their actions were proper, even as they implicated the admiral and raised questions over Navy leadership’s contracting culture.
The Burke prosecution is focused on one transaction, but its emerging details reflect the challenges the Navy has faced in recent years in combating reported command failures and corruption. Burke helped lead its response while serving as chief of naval personnel from 2016 to 2019, and vice chief of naval operations from 2019 to 2020, before retiring in summer 2022 as commander in Europe.
Over that span, the Navy managed the fallout of the worst corruption scandal in its modern history, involving disgraced defense contractor Leonard “Fat Leonard” Francis, which led to 34 prosecutions and 29 guilty pleas, most of them by Navy officers, although several are coming undone because of prosecutors’ misconduct. It met escalating complaints of sexual harassment and sexual assault in the ranks. And it experienced two deadly warship collisions that killed 17 sailors and exposed disastrous leadership, readiness and training breakdowns, two months apart in 2017.
Burke has said he contacted Next Jump after the wave of scandals to address a crisis of ethics and leadership. The e-commerce firm founded by Kim - whose Perks at Work has evolved into the world’s biggest employee discounts program - was lauded in a 2016 book by Harvard Business School researchers for its human development, and it was trying to convert its nonprofit training program for organizations into a second business line, starting with the Navy.
“The foundation of good decision-making is giving and getting the truth,” Next Jump’s website states, a possible cure for the chain-of-command problems that some Navy critics said fostered a sense of impunity by top commanders and silence by subordinates.
“It produces high performing teams, where people rapidly share their authentic thoughts - both good and bad.”
Now, Burke and Next Jump’s leaders face questions of their own practices and judgment. Friday’s defense filing, for example, suggests that if there was a bribery conspiracy, the alleged plotters appeared to hardly keep it a secret.
Recapping the July 2021 lunch meeting in an email to Next Jump personnel shortly afterward, Kim wrote that they “talked equity salary etc.,” and Burke potentially joining the company the following year, according to joint filings by Kim attorney William A. Burck for both executives. “While Burke indicated that he wanted to resign from the Navy ‘next week,’ [Kim and Messenger] preferred that he stay with the Navy as he would continue to help them navigate the contract process,” Kim told colleagues, according to the filing.
The defense does not name the woman with Burke at the meeting. A 16-page indictment returned May 30 identified her only as “Person 3,” a civilian Navy employee and companion of Burke. The admiral described her to the executives as a colleague who worked in the Office of the Under Secretary of the Navy, and she “actively participated” in talks over potential terms, the filing said.
Kim and Messenger did not know and “had no reason to believe the senior Naval official was also Burke’s ‘companion’ because they knew that Burke was married to a different woman,” the filing added.
At the earlier meeting, in April, Burke was joined by a different “high-ranking” defense official whose name was redacted, the filing said. The admiral said he wanted to be the company’s ambassador “immediately,” the executives said, and the second official told them later that she would follow up with information regarding conflict-of-interest rules for top Navy officials such as Burke, who was one of only nine four-star Navy admirals when he retired in 2022, the filing said.
Kim and Messenger gave detailed updates to more than “70 sophisticated [Next Jump] investors” about their job talks with Burke and his ability in the government to send them contracts, the filing said.
That could be valuable evidence against Burke, but their lawyers offered it as proof that the executives lacked corrupt intent or understanding that they were doing wrong. They also argued that a jury could unfairly hold Burke’s relationship while he was married and lies to the Navy against them.
Burke attorney Tim Parlatore said the admiral’s intimate relationship with Person 3 occurred while he was in the beginning stages of a divorce. Burke did not ultimately divorce his wife, the couple reconciled, and they remain married, Parlatore said.
“We disagree with the factual basis of these papers but agree that a severance is appropriate,” Parlatore said. Burke and his wife declined to comment.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia declined to comment. Both Burke and prosecutors are expected to respond in court next month.
Defense attorneys in multi-defendant cases often seek separate trials, arguing that otherwise one defendant could be tarred in the eyes of jurors by the misconduct of another. Co-defendants may also accuse each other of committing crimes, prejudicing their rights to a fair trial if they are lumped together, said retired Col. Don Christensen, a former chief prosecutor of the Air Force.
“Rather than sitting at trial finger-pointing at other people in front of the jury, in a trial by yourself there’s only one defense counsel arguing to the jury that the other guy’s at fault,” Christensen said.
A defendant in Burke’s situation could attack the credibility of an ex-romantic interest testifying for the government, arguing they have a motive to lie. Christensen, former president of Protect Our Defenders, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending rape and sexual assault in the military, said an extramarital affair by an officer, especially a senior commanding officer, could violate the military’s rule against adultery if it affected good order and discipline, although the rule exempts those who are formally separated and is rarely enforced against top officers.
“Across all the branches, we definitely have an ethics and culture problem, with many general officers and flag officers who feel very entitled and who are willing to bend the rules that they would hammer somebody of a junior rank for bending,” Christensen said, alluding to a range of conduct.
“It’s not uncommon, unfortunately. … Because they are supposed to be held to a higher standard,” he said.
Only one Navy admiral has ever been convicted of committing a federal crime while on active duty, and only two Air Force generals have faced court-martial for any reason, he said.
Burke’s dealings with Next Jump appear to have been known to subordinates and superiors.
According to Friday’s defense filing, Burke was Next Jump’s main Navy contact and supported its first pilot workforce training contracts in 2018 totaling $12 million. The filing said that a larger “all Navy” engagement with the firm was supported by Burke’s predecessor as vice chief of naval operations, Adm. William Moran, before Moran unexpectedly retired instead of taking over as chief of naval operations in August 2019 because of his ongoing work with a former top Navy spokesman accused of sexual misconduct.
That November, Kim emailed colleagues that Burke told him and Messenger in person that he had received from the new chief of naval operations the “go ahead to move out on” a larger company proposal, according to the defense filing.
But days after Kim emailed Burke and other Navy officials to express his excitement about the “CNO’s backing,” Burke’s aide told the company to stop contacting the admiral.
“If a potential service provider is perceived as having had undue influence in crafting a requirement,” it could be barred from the work, another official wrote, according to the filing, which included supporting email exhibits.
Prosecutors allege that two years later, it was in a bid to revive that proposal that Burke met the executives, agreeing to approve a sole-source $355,000 award and to influence other officers for further work in exchange for a future job.
Burke notified the Navy and received approval in May 2022 to join Next Jump after retiring. But he told them that summer that he was under investigation for the contract and asked whether they intended to rescind their offer, the executives’ filing said.
They declined, citing his qualities as a leader: “[We] hired you because you are a badass,” Kim wrote in a September email, according to the filing. Burke joined Next Jump that October and left the following January, the filing said, citing health reasons.
