10/13/2026
Corruption train.
After private-equity executive George K. Kollitides II took on a top Pentagon role, a firm he has close ties to, Alvarez & Marsal, soon began landing major military contracts.
Just months after he joined, records show that the department finalized a $281 million no-bid consulting contract with the firm to advise Kollities’ Pentagon office.
That contract is the second in a pair of deals that since December have awarded almost $350 million in military spending to the firm — about 5x more than Alvarez & Marsal entities had received from all U.S. agencies combined in the two decades before Trump returned to office.
Kollitides was still working with a close partner of the firm, A&M Capital, when the deals were signed. It’s unclear if he will benefit financially, as his employment at the Pentagon is under a special classification that allows him to keep his financial disclosures confidential. After ProPublica reached out, A&M Capital said Kollitides had just stopped working there days earlier.
Ethics experts said it’s generally illegal for executive branch officials to play a role in awarding contracts that would have a direct impact on their own finances, unless they were granted a waiver. “It looks way too cozy to be legitimate. I think taxpayers should be appalled,” a former federal government ethics lawyer said.
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In a statement, A&M Capital said it is a “separately capitalized and separately managed firm from the Alvarez & Marsal consulting business” and that none of Kollitides’ work for it related to the “defense industry, the Department of War or Mr. Kollitides’ government service.”
The Alvarez & Marsal consulting business did not answer any of ProPublica’s questions.
Kollitides did not respond to questions about whether he played a role in A&M securing contracts to work for his office, but a Pentagon spokesperson replied for the department and on Kollitides’ behalf: “The Department of War maintains a rigorous, multi-layered ethics framework,” he wrote. Kollitides, he added, “is in full compliance with all ethical laws and regulations.”
