Picture this: The Department of Defense (DoD) proposes to build a plane that, despite ostensibly being the best on the market, costs hundreds of billions of dollars more than they claim, never quite works according to plan, could be used…

It seems an easy enough case to make. Patrick Shanahan, acting secretary of defense, came to the Pentagon from Boeing, where he worked on commercial planes, military helicopters and missile defense systems. President Trump is said to favor him in…