He still feels strongly that they shouldn't have published. But he can't stop them, so they are going to do it.

Lawyers would not take debtor cases if they didn't get a priority (repayment) position.

And it will be HHS and not the academy that will have to deal with the consequences.

We're not limited to awarding to just a single company.

Good and reasonable people will disagree, but he feels the academy is wrong and that the consequences of publishing could be dire,

In fairness, I think Bush knew he would get blamed for Virginia, one way or another. Given that, they probably thought they would do what they could.