GA Senate & Holiday News Dumps Are Each Testaments to the Politics of Corruption
Newsletter 65: Strong ethics measures are a political imperative
Some celebrate on New Years’ Eve. Biden and his team offload inconvenient or troubling stories.
Last year, that was a list of the presidential candidate’s bundlers. This year, it was the first wave of the now-President-elect’s nominees’ disclosures. We bemoaned the efficacy of this evasion last year and are no more impressed by the timing of this release.
We suspect, however, that neither New Years’ Eve nor the Georgia runoff will be enough to keep scrutiny of, and outrage over, the Biden team’s corporate ties at bay. Indeed, Ossoff and Warnock and their allies spent tens of millions of dollars hammering home how insider trading Senators Perdue and Loeffler put personal enrichment ahead of the public interest. Since the Revolving Door Project has spent four years arguing that Democrats should focus on how Trump’s corruption is gross and consequential across the executive branch, the belated attention to Trumpian Republican corruption makes us happy. More like this please!
But Georgia’s stunning results are not occurring in a vacuum. Republican political operatives do their job well, and they understand the political power of attacks on insider corruption amidst our popular moment. And do not for a minute believe that Republicans will be deterred by the likelihood of being called “hypocrites” from making ethics attacks on the Biden Team.
Biden cannot prevent Republican attacks -- they will come regardless of what the Administration does. But Biden can render such attacks ineffectual by putting forth strong ethical standards and then building a team committed to them.
DON’T MISS: Next Tuesday, January 12, the project’s Jeff Hauser will join Zephyr Teachout, Osita Nwanevu, and Zachary Carter for a discussion on “How to Govern Our Way Out of Trump’s Mess” hosted by The New Republic and moderated by deputy editor Jason Linkins.
Transition:
First things first: what exactly did we learn from these disclosures? Coverage so far has focused on the hefty fees Treasury Secretary nominee Janet Yellen collected for speeches to companies including Citigroup, Google, UBS, and Credit Suisse. It’s little wonder that many would find this rather unsavory; watching a former and future regulator hobnob with the regulated for a pretty penny hardly inspires confidence. Of course, Yellen’s actual record on financial regulation is strong. Nonetheless, in this moment of historically depleted trust in government, the least she could do would be to release the contents of those talks.
While Yellen’s $7 million speaking haul grabbed headlines, it was far from the most troubling revelation in the disclosures. Much more concerning were the lists of clients to whom soon-to-be Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Avril Haines had sold the promise of inside knowledge and access to future power. Blinken earned over $1.2 million in two years by providing strategic advice to Facebook, Google, Blackstone, and others, as well as additional sums helping form a private equity fund guided on the basis of Blinken & pals’ “access, network and expertise” developed in public service.
Haines, meanwhile, earned $180k consulting for Palantir, a surveillance company famous for its collaborations with ICE. (This is on top of the over $600k of salary she earned in a year and half from Columbia University and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab; despite some people’s claims, foregoing the revolving door would not have meant choosing a life of poverty.)
While the sums may be less eye popping than Yellen’s speeches, monetizing public sector insights for private gain is more dangerous than taking advantage of the desire of rich audiences to mingle with someone famous and genuinely accomplished like Yellen. Of course, we do believe the public should be able to confirm our suspicion that Yellen’s audiences got nothing useful other than a picture for their “glory wall.”.
Regardless, this scrutiny is likely only the beginning. With many nominees straight out of the DC influence industry, accusations that the Biden administration is rolling out the red carpet for corporate America will be hard to dodge. If there’s one thing that Americans across the political spectrum hate it is political corruption. And if there’s one thing right wing media loves, it is to hypocritically stoke outrage about it when Democrats even toe the line. (BTW, Democrats would have been well served to run more on corruption against Trump than they did.)
We’re already seeing it happen. Right wing media figures and politicians have attacked Biden for appointing figures from Facebook, Google, and WestExec Advisors. They’ve also seized on Biden advisor Steve Ricchetti’s lobbyist brother Jeff and his new clients like Amazon. If this all looks tame compared to what these same commentators defended from the Trump administration over the last four years, that’s because it is. Of course, that Trump was historically corrupt will neither stop Fox News and Breitbart from working themselves and their audiences into a frenzy nor give Biden and his team a pass for their much milder forms of influence trading.
The fact of the matter is, despite assurances that he would never use his connections improperly, it is disturbing that Jeff Ricchetti has seen his lobbying business grow immensely as his brother moves closer to power. And it is hard to believe that appointees from BlackRock, a worrisome economic Goliath, can really disentangle themselves from decisions that will affect their former employer. It’s also not wrong to be dismayed when those who used their diplomatic power to enrich corporations abroad are in line for positions of public trust once again.
The Biden team seems intent to push aside these concerns as “purity tests” but with so many Americans in agreement about the harms of corruption and right wing media ready to seize on that sentiment, it will do so at great political risk. The administration is not powerless to respond. Biden still has not released ethical guidelines to supplement ethics law. We have suggestions for an ironclad ethics pledge as do Senators Warren, Merkley, and Markey.
After a historically corrupt presidency that revealed fatal weaknesses in our ethics law, now is not the time to return to the status quo but to forge boldly ahead. New ethics measures that close and lock the revolving door, eliminate conflicts of interest, and establish new standards for transparency will not only usher in a new era of effective government in the public interest, but pay considerable political dividends for the president who chooses to make them a reality.
Congressional Oversight
When Trump leaves office on January 20th, House Democrats are going to be tempted to forget that his disastrous administration ever happened. After two years of desperately trying to ignore his abuses, Democratic leadership will be eager to “look forward” not “backward.” If you’re a longtime subscriber you’ve likely already read our thoughts on just how misguided this sort of thinking is. Ignoring these problems will not make them go away. And Congress is about to be better positioned than at any point so far to get to the bottom of what occurred under Trump.
It’s no secret that we found the 116th Congress’ oversight efforts to be lacking but it would be wrong to ignore the considerable obstacles lawmakers have faced in actually uncovering information. The Trump administration’s obstruction was unprecedented and unrelenting. Requests for even basic information have gone unanswered, leaving lawmakers and the public in the dark. That, however, is about to change. Soon, Biden and his team will control the flow of information to Congress and can tear down the stonewall that Trump erected between the executive and legislative branches. To forgo access to information about political appointees burrowing in, rules and guidance still on the books, procedures illegally circumvented and other ongoing problems in the name of “looking forward” would be shameful.
Governance
We continue to closely watch for news that the Trump administration is using Schedule F to its full effect. Whether or not they are able to implement their evil schemes, however, we know that serious damage to our governing institutions has already been done. Over the past days, Politico has reported on the depleted ranks, low morale, politicization, and logistical nightmares that will face the Biden administration at the Departments of Health and Human Services, Treasury, and Agriculture. They are surely not the only institutions facing these problems.
Biden will need to act fast to reinvigorate and replenish these corners of government if he hopes to face present and future crises. Thanks to last night’s election results, it looks like he may have reinforcement from Congress. With or without that help, however, he will need to act using the laws that are already on the books to add new members to the civil service’s ranks as fast as possible.
Want more? Check out some of the pieces that we have published or contributed research or thoughts to in the last week:
Biden Team’s Looming NatSec Conflicts Spell Trouble
Biden's Shadow Transition Director Aided Corporations At Home And Abroad
A Strong Ethics Pledge Will Pay Political Dividends
The Most Important Biden Appointee No One Has Heard Of
Why Progressives Should Care About The Commerce Secretary
Biden Considering Lawyer Who Defended Big Oil In Climate Suits For Solicitor General
Joe Biden bets on old allies to help him confront new crises
Will Joe Biden be sucked into Big Tech's lobbyist 'revolving door'?
Biden names ex-Facebook regulatory lawyer to key White House post
Janet Yellen made millions giving speeches to Wall Street banks she'll soon regulate
Biden Considering Lawyer Who Defended Big Oil In Climate Suits For Solicitor General