President-elect Joe Biden
Joe BidenBidens honors frontline workers in NYE speech: “We owe them, we owe them, we owe them” Hotel Trump in DC raises room rates for Biden’s grand openingThe company’s choice to lead the Treasury Department has yielded more than $ 1 million in speeches and working with corporate clients, according to financial disclosures published on Thursday.
Janet Yellen
Janet Louise Yellen2021: The year when debt chickens can return home to perch Biden transition says that more than half of WH’s 100 advisers are people of color. The memo: The left seeks leverage to move Biden MORE, Biden’s nominee for Treasury secretary, has earned more than $ 7.2 million speaking to Wall Street companies and corporations in the past two years, according to her financial disclosure form.
The choice of president-elect for secretary of state, Antony Blinken
Antony BlinkenFind Biden’s choice to lead the US intelligence community Mnuchin says he spoke to Biden Treasury nominee Yellen Next steps on foreign policy MORE, earned nearly $ 1.2 million over the past two years through consulting clients at WestExec Advisors, according to its financial disclosure.
The large sums of money raised by the Biden Cabinet’s choices can complicate progressive support for nominees during Senate confirmation hearings.
Yellen, who progressives praised when Biden named her Treasury nominee, won millions in speaking fees from Citi, Goldman Sachs, Google, City National Bank, UBS, Citadel LLC, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Salesforce and others. For Citi alone, she received $ 1 million for nine speeches, and for Citadel, a hedge fund founded by a Republican donor, she received more than $ 800,000.
The prospective Treasury secretary also promised to speak to the department’s ethics lawyers to “seek written authorization to participate personally and substantially in any specific matter” involving companies that paid her last year.
Meanwhile, the nominated secretary of state revealed the clients he worked with at WestExec Advisors, which included Blackstone, Bank of America, Facebook, Uber, McKinsey & Company, Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, pharmaceutical Gilead, investment bank Lazard, Boeing , AT&T, Royal Bank of Canada and LinkedIn.
In addition to the nearly $ 1.2 million made in the past two years, Blinken is expected to earn about $ 250,000 to $ 500,000 this year.
His financial disclosure indicates that he plans to sell his stake in WestExec, between $ 500,000 and $ 1 million, and also to divest his stake in sister company WestExec Ventures, which totals between $ 1 million and $ 5 million.
The Biden transition officer told Politico the team filled out the disclosure forms “midweek” and the Government Ethics Office published them on New Year’s Eve.
The transition officer defended Yellen’s financial past, saying, “Take a look at his oversight record – he is not someone who makes a fuss about bad actors or bad behavior.”
“You can expect that it will bring the same high ethical standards and strict application philosophy to the Treasury,” added the official.
A transition spokesman said Yellen made speeches “after several decades in the public service” to discuss “his experiences and opinions on what we can do as a country to build a stronger economy and increase our competitiveness”.
“Her experience and knowledge are the reasons why President-elect Biden wanted her on his team working for him and on behalf of the American people to help us overcome this economic crisis,” the spokesman said in a statement to The Hill.
“It is clear that academic, business and economic leaders were looking for a well-informed and insightful view of the economy during a chaotic period for the country when there were few reliable voices in the government,” they added.
Another nominee whose disclosure form may pose a problem is the potential Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, who was a director and consultant at WestExec. She reported $ 180,000 in “consulting fees” from data mining company Palantir.
The transition spokesman said in a statement that Haines “served as a consultant whose limited scope of work was mainly focused on the company’s diversity and inclusion efforts, particularly increasing gender diversity.”
Updated: 12h53