So General Dynamics is another run-of-the-mill aerospace and defense contractor offering products and services in weapons, combat vehicles, aviation, and shipbuilding. But the company’s IT unit engages in a service that isn’t defense related: it aids the Department of Health & Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) in coordinating placement of “unaccompanied minors” who have been separated from their families under Trump’s immigration rules.
The company has been scrambling to mitigate the backlash of this, including this tweet on what the company **doesn’t** do within the profitable family separation protocol. The backlash hasn’t abated, however, and even CEO Phebe Novakovic is on the receiving end of protests over her company’s profiting from Trump’s immigration policy.
But although General Dynamics’ bevy of lobbyists includes two former aides to members of Trump’s cabinet, Novakovic has her own frustrations with the Trump administration, as reported by *Forbes*: “Novakovic has expressed frustration at the Trump administration’s slow pace in filling Pentagon positions, and she acknowledged in July that the delays are slowing down the process of contracts being approved and filled.”
In addition to working in the Department of Defense, Novakovic also worked as an operations officer for the CIA. And her husband, David Morrison, used to work on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. – writing for Fortune Magazine recounts a cozy story of their …: “Some years ago, when she was working at General Dynamics but hadn’t yet ascended to the top role, a former company executive recalls, “someone suggested we run an idea past David Morrison.” Morrison was then a top staffer on the House defense appropriations subcommittee, a powerful figure in defense contracting. “Phebe said she would talk to him at dinner,” the former executive recalls.” (Novakovic’s first husband, Michael Vickers, was Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.)