"Necessary to Maintain Peak Lethality"

From an April 1 Justice Department press release:

Today, a Federal Judge accepted a guilty plea to destruction of records in a federal investigation from a former employee of a contractor that provided operation and maintenance services to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for U.S. military installations in South Korea.

According to the information filed in the Western District of Texas, in or about July 2021, David Cruz, 37, deleted text messages with Hyuk Jin Kwon and Hyun Ki Shin. Kwon and Shin were separately charged ‌for fraud and conspiring to rig bids and fix prices on millions of dollars in maintenance and repair subcontracting work provided to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in South Korea and remain fugitives. At Kwon's suggestion, Cruz deleted text messages after receiving a litigation hold notice from his employer requiring him not to destroy or delete communications. Cruz then covered up the deletion of those text messages after being specifically advised by his employer that there was an ongoing federal investigation.

In the deleted text messages, Cruz discussed with Kwon and Shin the need to get additional bids from their competitor to satisfy the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer's competitive bidding requirements for subcontract work. Kwon had previously told Cruz that Cruz should contact him instead of requesting bids directly from Kwon's competitors….

"Bid rigging and other acts of fraud against the U.S. Army not only undermine the integrity of critical procurement efforts but also put our Soldiers at risk by providing them capabilities and services which do not meet the high standards necessary to maintain peak lethality," said Special Agent in Charge Michael DeFamio of the Department of the Army Criminal Investigation Division (Army CID), Far East Field Office….

Comments

[Kleppe]

This phraseology is unremarkable. It is ubiquitous in Defense contexts.

[Flight-ER-Doc]

A federal judge? Should that not be a former federal judge? Impeached, and disbarred from ever holding an office of trust in the US again?

[Just Eric]

Why?

[Davy C]

I think he must have read that the judge pled guilty, not that the judge *accepted* the guilty plea.

[Incunabulum]

>Soldiers at risk by providing them capabilities and services which do not meet the high standards necessary to maintain peak lethality

It *could* do that - but it's not an inherently part of that.

[Dr. Ed 2]

" the high standards necessary to maintain peak lethality,"

The purpose of the military is to kill people and break things.

[Lee Moore]

“Peak lethality” is not necessarily a good thing. So long as the enemy bothers about caring for its wounded, inflicting less lethality and more injury may be preferable, as tending to the injured costs more in resources than burying the dead, or leaving them where they lie.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

That sounds like a fair point. Peak casualty.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Our enemies are more likely to kill their own wounded.

Russia, China, North Korea, Iran?

[Jdfreivald]

That's true, but lethality is definitely one of the desiderata for many/most weapons, and it's not really reasonable for a judge to say (or to require a litigant to say) "peak lethality, or capacity to wound an enemy such that his/her/xir confederates would have to spend more resources helping him/her/xim than if he were killed, or capacity to achieve some other desired aim...."

I think "peak lethality" gets the point across just fine, and it's accurate in a great many situations.