Sunday, June 26, 2022

Revolving-door riches: How Obama-Biden officials cashed in during the Trump years

Washington's revolving door

  • Politicians use the revolving door to cash in on their government service by roving between the private and public sectors, leveraging their government connections and know-how
  • 151 officials who left the government in the final days of the Obama administration, then returned under Biden
  • Median assets increased an estimated 270% over four years
  • By comparison, total household assets increased 38% nationwide from 2017- 2021

Three Types of Revolvers

  • Joining a big company and earning a big salary
  • Those who don’t work directly for big company can join a law or lobbying firm
  • Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas left the Obama administration in 2016 to join WilmerHale, a powerful firm in D.C.
  • Over the next four years, he worked with clients like MGM Resorts, Blackstone and Northrup Grumman, and is now worth an estimated $8 million
  • James O’Brien, Biden’s coordinator for sanctions policy, led the European practice at international advisory firm Albright Stonebridge while he was out of government
  • The same concerns surround WestExec Advisors, a strategic consulting firm that Secretary of State Antony Blinken cofounded in 2017
  • Working with clients, Blinken grew the firm quickly, becoming the strategic advisor for FedEx, Uber, and other clients

The ban, however, only applies to cases where a personal service has been provided to the company in question, which also has to be a named party in the policy discussion.

  • In reality, much of what a corporation wants from the government is more abstract-for example, broad tax relief or general trade policy.

Methodology

  • 151 "revolving door" government officials who left the Obama administration after 2016, worked in the private sector, and returned under the Biden administration

In public financial disclosures, each asset's valuation is disclosed as a range, such as "$1,001 to $15,000."

  • The true valuation of the asset is somewhere within the range.
  • Most computational findings in this story are based on lower minimum amounts because compared to the largest possible amounts, the minimum amounts are more consistent indicators of wealth.

 

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2022/jun/20/revolving-door-riches-how-obama-biden-officials-ca/ 

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