The government's corruption case against now-retired Navy Adm. Robert Burke may be dealt a heavy blow in the coming weeks as lawyers for both the officer and the company he's alleged to have taken bribes from have filed motions to dismiss any evidence gathered from a key witness.
The witness in question is a woman with whom Burke was having an affair and who, according to court filings, went to officials with the bribery allegations after their relationship ended. The filings argue that the woman has a documented history of lying to the courts and that prosecutors failed to offer any of that information in requests for two search warrants used to gather evidence against Burke and the executives of the company that eventually hired him.
Outside legal experts say that, while the loss of a key witness may not mean an outright end to the trial, the legal framework around bribery will still make it incredibly challenging for prosecutors to get a conviction. Moreover, the case is highlighting a deeper problem within top military leadership circles, where close relationships with companies looking to do business with the Pentagon lead to problematic, if not illegal, results.
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The case against Burke, who was once commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Africa and the Navy's second-highest ranking officer, as well as Charlie Kim and Meghan Messenger of the company Next Jump, began in late May 2024, when the trio was arrested over allegations that Burke directed a lucrative Navy contract to the firm, which specializes in leadership training, in 2021 while serving as a four-star admiral.
Next Jump later hired him in 2022 for a starting salary of $500,000 per year after he left the Navy.
However, by summer, the judge overseeing the case split Burke's case off from the pair of executives after they argued that they were deceived by Burke and that the large, $100 million contract they spent years pursuing with the Navy never materialized. Instead, the company got a far smaller $355,000 contract.
Since then, while the retired admiral and the two executives appear to be at odds about some of the details of their relationship and offered different arguments as to their innocence through court filings, they have been in agreement over their belief that evidence provided to prosecutors by Burke's mistress needs to be excluded from the case.
While officially unnamed in court documents, the woman has been described as a top civilian official working in the Office of the Under Secretary of the Navy.
A filing error on behalf of prosecutors, however, briefly made the woman's name public. Since she has not been charged with a crime, Military.com is choosing not to reveal her identity but has repeatedly reached out to her to see whether she is interested in offering her side of the story with no response.
Witness 1
In the court documents, the mistress is referred to as "Witness 1," and lawyers for Kim and Messenger argued in a filing aimed at excluding her evidence that "a trial court judge in Virginia found that Witness 1 had lied extensively about her ex-husband in contentious divorce and child custody proceedings."
Burke's attorney went even further.
"This entire case rests on the credibility of Witness 1, a known liar and perjurer" and "the search warrants issued in this investigation relied almost entirely on Witness 1's statements to investigators," he wrote in a filing.
Citing the same divorce case, Burke's lawyer said that the woman made unfounded allegations of sexual abuse against her now-ex-husband, and "the court found that Witness 1 manipulated the child into making false disclosures of sexual abuse, using tactics such as sleep deprivation and promises of rewards."
"Witness 1 also fabricated allegations that her ex-husband possessed child pornography, but a forensic evaluation found no evidence to support these claims," the motion went on.
Attorneys for both Burke and the Next Jump leaders also noted that federal investigators should have known about this glaring issue with Witness 1's credibility and informed the judge who was signing off on the warrants that were used to gather the evidence that would, in turn, lead to the indictments.
"It is not plausible that the case agents did not run a background check or even internet search on the government's key witness, review her security clearance materials (which disclose the adverse credibility finding), or otherwise inquire into her prior court proceedings," the lawyers for Kim and Messenger wrote.
Meanwhile, Burke's attorney also noted that, "despite the actual knowledge of these two agencies who participated in the preparation of the warrant application, they inexcusably failed to disclose this to the court."
The judge in the case has yet to rule on the argument to dismiss any of the evidence tied to Witness 1 but, even if the motions succeed, it may not mean an immediate end to the case.
Todd Huntley, the director of the National Security Law Program at the Georgetown University Law Center and a retired Navy captain and judge advocate, told Military.com in an interview last week that in a case like this, "especially if the main witness has such credibility problems, you would think [prosecutors] must have some other documentary evidence."
"The problem with almost any criminal prosecution is really all you see, outside of the indictment from the prosecutors, is what the defense presents," Huntley added.
Instead, Huntley said that the bigger hurdle for prosecutors is not whether the evidence from Witness 1 stays in but if Burke and Next Jump's actions -- hiring a man who had just been a point person while they were trying to secure government contracts -- count as bribery at all.
The McDonnell Decision
In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court found that then-Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell didn't engage in bribery when he hosted events promoting a tobacco extract company at the governor's mansion after receiving gifts from the company's CEO.
The Supreme Court decided that the bribery law's meaning of "official act" did not include things like setting up meetings, making phone calls or hosting events -- even if, when done by top officials or executives, those acts can carry significant connotation and importance.
Both Huntley and Burke's attorney pointed to that case as the reason why the bribery charges against the former four-star admiral may not stick.
In his motion to dismiss the bribery charges against Burke, his lawyer argued that, "aside from the nonsensical math of offering a $500,000 job as a bribe to obtain a $350,000 contract, the allegations in the indictment demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of the Navy's contracting procedures."
The motion goes on to note that "Burke did not have the power to grant" the contract in question because "the process is designed to ensure that no single person, regardless of rank, makes decisions on contract approvals."
"In this quid pro quo, the alleged official act is one that applicable laws and regulations make clear that Defendant Burke did not have the power to grant," Burke's lawyer wrote, before adding that if the bribery count is dismissed then his remaining charges "similarly fall away when analyzed under the applicable law."
However, what Burke's arguments leave out is, as a four-star admiral, he had significant influence on the people who would then "officially" approve those contracts.
"A four-star makes an off-handed comment ... subordinates take that as a direction," Huntley said.
Moreover, Burke was operating in a revolving-door climate notorious for top admirals and generals leaving the service only to take lucrative jobs on the boards of top defense contractors.
"On one end, there's the very clear bribery -- quid pro quo; at the opposite end, you have basically what happens to every three- and four-star admiral, just like Aquilino joining the board of Lockheed Martin last week," Huntley said.
Adm. John Aquilino, a fighter pilot who rose through the ranks and retired after serving as the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, has been on the Lockheed Martin board since Dec. 11, according to the company website.
Lockheed Martin has billions of dollars in Navy contracts including for F-35 Lightning II jets, CH-53 helicopters and hypersonic missiles.
"That is perfectly normal," Huntley said, speaking of Aquilino's new job, "and so you have this huge gray area in between ... and the talk that happened between senior officials, admirals and defense contractors happens hundreds of times a day.
"Proving where that crosses the line is very difficult," he said.
The law, as it stands now, doesn't take into account a world that speaks in code. It demands an official act and, as Huntley said, something "substantial in return -- directly in return -- and not just: 'Oh, you know, you retire, let's talk.'"
