...Assad’s aggressive approach to contract negotiations, however, paid off. The Pentagon credited the career civil servant with bringing down the costs of the Apache helicopter, the C-17 transport plane and the F/A-18 fighter, saving taxpayers more than half a billion dollars. And that wasn’t all: A former senior Pentagon official said Assad had over the span of his career “saved the Department of Defense many billions of dollars.”

Trump’s interest in negotiating better prices for the government made it seem like Assad’s work would get White House attention.

Yet within two years of Trump’s entrance into the White House, Assad would find himself removed from his job, and his efforts to save money and recover hundreds of millions of dollars in potentially fraudulent spending tabled...