The New York Times
Washington has been profitable for some of Biden’s team
WASHINGTON – The choice of President-elect Joe Biden for Treasury Secretary, Janet L. Yellen, has raised more than $ 7 million in lecture fees over the past two years from large corporations and Wall Street banks that have a keen interest in financial policies she will oversee after her expected confirmation to lead the Treasury Department. Yellen’s paid presentations – which included $ 992,000 from investment bank Citi for nine presentations – were among the lucrative payments in a series of Wall Street, Big Tech and corporate interests for three potential prominent members of the next Biden administration. The payments, revealed in disclosure statements from the previous two years and released on New Year’s Eve, have caused consternation among progressive activists concerned about the influence of special interests around Biden, whom they see as part of a democratic establishment that they have not embraced enough liberal priorities. Sign up for The Morning newsletter of New York TimesBiden’s choice of secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, received nearly $ 1.2 million from a consulting firm he helped found, WestExec Advisors, where he advised a number of companies, including Facebook, Boeing, private equity giant Blackstone and asset management chosen by Lazard.Biden for director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, received $ 180,000 to consult with data mining company Palantir, which has sparked controversy for providing law enforcement data and surveillance services, including the U.S. Department of Immigration. their disclosure statements, Yellen, Blinken and Haines, each filed ethics agreements committing themselves to avoid involvement in specific issues that could affect any holding they still own, or with which they worked in the previous year, unless they receive a written waiver of ethics officials. The three may have to extend the conflict of interest window beyond a year if Biden enacts an ethics barrier g employees in his administration participate for two years in policies that could affect their previous business interests. Yellen and Blinken also indicated that they would divest their interests in companies, including shares owned by Yellen in large corporations such as AT&T, ConocoPhillips, Dow, Pfizer and Raytheon. Blinken said he would sell his stake in WestExec Advisors, as well as a venture capital firm linked to it. Blinken indicated in his disclosure request that these holdings are worth a total of $ 1.5 million to $ 6 million. David Segal, the executive director of the Progressive group Demand Progress, said he still has concerns, although officials have promised to abide by the conflict of interest rules. “There are almost too many corporate clients to count that they have relationships with the respective spheres that those designated would manage if confirmed,” he said, adding that “this is an unfortunate circumstance”, particularly as Biden strives to make a difference between his management and the President Donald Trump. In the Trump administration, representatives of corporate America and Wall Street held prominent positions and conflicts of interest abounded. Biden’s team records offer another glimpse into Washington’s old revolving door. Officials whose parties have lost power monetize their internal experience and connections in the private sector, then return to the government when their party resumes the White House. Yellen, a former president of the Federal Reserve, started giving paid speeches in February 2018, which was within a year of completing her term at the Fed. She was also an advisor to Magellan Financial Group Ltd., a fund manager for Australia-based investment, which paid him $ 125,000. Haines stepped down as President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser at the end of his 2017 term, and for about six months she was working as a consultant for Palantir. When Haines joined Biden’s transition team over the summer, a spokesman sought to distance her from Palantir’s data collection and surveillance, saying that the vast majority of her work for the company was related to diversity and inclusion. Most of Haines’ income came from Columbia University, which paid her more than $ 440,000 to help run an international research project and teach at the university’s law school. She also received $ 150,000 to be a consultant in the applied physics laboratory at Johns Hopkins University and almost $ 55,000 to consult and make presentations to WestExec Advisors, the company that Blinken helped found. Blinken, who served as undersecretary of state in the Obama administration, formed WestExec Advisors about eight months after leaving office with three other Obama administration officials. The company, named after the small street that runs between the west wing of the White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, was hired by clients seeking advice on navigation from the federal government. The company also partnered with venture capital funds that helped companies it advised to expand to take on federal contracts or other new work. Linken’s disclosure forms show that he has worked with 17 WestExec customers, including Microsoft, Uber, AT&T, FedEx, LinkedIn, Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences and McKinsey & Co., a global consulting firm. WestExec said in a statement after Blinken emerged as the likely secretary of state to choose that he helped business leaders “make the best decisions in a complex and volatile international scenario”. Blinken also publicly defended technology companies, while Facebook was a customer of WestExec. When technology companies were criticized for failing to adequately combat disinformation during the 2016 election – including Facebook posts that were part of a Russian effort to boost Trump’s presidential campaign – Blinken said the blame should be directed primarily at Russia . The technology platforms “to do better to defend against malicious actors, but we will not lose sight of the forest for the trees: the problem is Russia and other actors who use our openness against us, not the platforms,” he said. Blinken in an interview with Fast Company published in October 2017. “The biggest mistake we can make is entering a circular firing squad with the government and technology companies,” Blinken told the publication, which identified him as a consultant for Facebook and Google’s parent company Alphabet.Jose Castañeda, a Google spokesman, said the company hired WestExec for a month in 2018 to provide technology policy advice, but added that the advice was “provided by others at the company, not t by Mr. Blinken. “In 2009, Obama banned all of his nominees from participating for two years on” any specific issue “as a government official who” directly and substantially “related to With a former employer or ex-client, including a federal regulation, this can affect the ex-client. Hence it has not yet released details of the types of restrictions it will impose on its political appointees. This article was originally published in The New York Times. (C) 2021 The New York Times Company