
When Sarah Feinberg was a young lead associate at the consulting firm of Booz Allen Hamilton between 2010 and 2016, she noticed that the company was overbilling the U.S. government for its defense and national security contracts, and thus was effectively subsidizing the firm’s work for the Saudi government.
That discovery set off a series of events that culminated in July with a government settlement with the McLean, Va.-based firm worth $377 million — a return that made Feinberg a hero under the whistleblower statute and entitled her to a $70 million reward.
But now, Feinberg tells POLITICO, she believes the government did not go far enough in recovering money from Booz Allen, and that government contractors continue to be incentivized to defraud the government because of the Justice Department’s weakness.
Feinberg, who was 31 when she alerted colleagues to the alleged overbilling, said after her years with Booz Allen she had identified over $250 million of overbilling of the U.S. government by the firm, but that the firm continued to carry out the practice for another five years. She estimated that the total scope of the overbilling was at least $500 million.