Hundreds of retired US military officials have taken on lucrative work with foreign governments known for human rights abuses and free speech suppression since 2015 — with the blessing of the Pentagon, which has long fought to keep the eyebrow-raising practice under wraps.

Scores of respected generals and admirals — including former national security advisers Marine Gen. James Jones and Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn — were among those cashing six and seven-figure checks for the work, according to a bombshell report from the Washington Post, which published the findings Tuesday after suing all branches of the military and the State Department for a trove of personnel documents in a prolonged court fight.

Fifteen of the former top military officials have done consulting work for Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, since 2016, according to the report. US intelligence has concluded the crown prince, widely known as MBS, approved the 2018 murder of Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi amid a crackdown on dissent in the kingdom.

Jones, who served as Barack Obama’s national security adviser from 2009 to 2010, owns two firms that contracted with Riyadh as the US partner intervened in Yemen’s civil war with bombings that killed tens of thousands of civilians, the Washington Post said.

Most of the other more than 500 retired officials worked as contractors to upgrade the militaries of countries in North Africa and other oil-rich monarchies like the United Arab Emirates, which joined the Saudi-led coalition’s Yemen offensive in 2018.

Federal law prohibits retired military personnel from receiving anything from foreign governments that would interfere with their sworn allegiance to the US, but Congress allows retired military officials to work for foreign states with the approval of their former branch and the State Department, which must determine if the gigs “would adversely affect the foreign relations of the United States,” the report said.

Almost all requests to take foreign work are reportedly rubber-stamped, with 95% of those made since 2015 approved. However, the Washington Post investigation found that many retired military officials don’t bother to report their overseas work and there is no criminal penalty for violating the policy. Defense officials had the authority to withhold retirement pay from offenders, but did so “fewer than five times,” a military official told the outlet.

The pay that contractors receive from foreign governments often dwarfs the already handsome salaries that officials earned in the military, the article said. For example, Azerbaijan offered a retired Air Force general $5,000 a day for consulting work, while Australia reportedly doled out a contract worth more than $10 million to several former Navy officials.

Veterans of lower rank also pulled down large sums of money, according to the investigation. A former Navy SEAL earned $258,000 a year to work as a special operations adviser for Saudi Arabia. Helicopter pilots earned $200,000 a year from the UAE, while aircraft mechanics pulled down $120,000 per annum.

In March, a month after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Pentagon reportedly allowed a retired Air Force colonel to take a $300,000-per-year job as an executive with a US-based satellite-launch company owned by Moscow.

Flynn, who served as Donald Trump’s national security adviser for three weeks in 2017, had collected $449,807 from Russia and Turkey two years before, but did not get approval for the contract gigs. His work was uncovered after he was photographed sitting next to Russian President Vladimir Putin during a propaganda event at which he was paid $38,557 to speak in 2015.

Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his Russian contacts and was later pardoned by Trump, his one-time boss. He was ordered to pay back his speaking fee but was allowed to keep the remaining $411,250 without explanation, the report said.

The scandal led Congress to pass laws requiring the Pentagon to disclose information to lawmakers about retired generals and admirals who work overseas. In those reports, the Defense Department omits the names of the officials, according to the Washington Post.

Outside of Flynn and the former Air Force colonel, documents obtained by the paper found no other instances of military officials working for other “foreign adversaries” like China, North Korea, Iran, Cuba or Venezuela.

The Washington Post obtained some 4,000 pages of documents and case files for about 450 retired personnel following a two year legal battle. US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled last month that the government’s argument that releasing the documents would subject vets to “embarrassment and harassment” and “unfairly harm their public reputation” was “unconvincing,” according to the report.

The military has also been sued over the matter by the nonprofit watchdog Project On Government Oversight.

“The public is working on the assumption that their sole loyalty is to the United States,” Brandon Brockmyer, POGO’s director of investigations and research, told the paper. “The public has the right to know whether and how a foreign power has access to their expertise.”