The network failed to disclose Kyrsten Sinema’s work for Hogan Lovells and Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency company in the world.
Last week, Jake Tapper had former Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) on his show to discuss various issue areas, including the medical use of psychedelics, Artificial Intelligence regulation, and cryptocurrency regulation. When introducing the segment, Tapper said that Sinema was invited on the show to “discuss how she’s working with the Trump administration to advance some particular causes about which she is passionate.” But it turns out passion might not be the primary reason Sinema’s interested in these topics.
Omitted from Tapper’s introduction is the obviously relevant nugget of information: Sinema’s current employer, Hogan Lovells, is an international law firm that not only represents multiple clients in the rapidly growing AI industry, but lobbies on their behalf. As a recently departed senator, Sinema is subject to a cooling-off period, which bars her from lobbying her former colleagues for two years. However, this restriction does not prevent her from advising a firm like Hogan Lovells.
The firm, which employs Sinema as a senior advisor, lobbies for the AI Healthcare Coalition, an organization which purports to be “a convening space for stakeholders developing and innovating in the space of healthcare AI.” They also represent Merlin Labs, a company which claims to be “developing the world’s leading ai-enabled, autonomous pilot.” On the legal side, the firm also has a number of other AI clients, including chip goliath Nvidia and social media giant Meta. In fact, in the press release announcing Sinema’s hiring, Hogan Lovells specifically cited cryptocurrency and AI as issues with which the former senator would be assisting clients. Sinema had been a favorite of both the cryptocurrency and AI industries while in office.
Despite these glaring conflicts of interest, Tapper invited Sinema to speak her mind on AI regulation issues, given her genuine passion for the subject. Sinema leapt at the chance, gushing about what a fantastic job Trump’s AI and cryptocurrency czar David Sacks was doing.
“So, you know, there are folks who have lots of various opinions about the Trump administration, but I got to say on A.I., they are knocking it out of the park. David Sachs [sic]. who was appointed as the A.I. and crypto czar, knows the stuff inside and out. As you know, just a couple weeks ago, the administration came out with their A.I. action plan. It is well-reasoned. It is well-thought. It is ambitious. I mean, it really strikes a path for us to win the A.I. race against China, which I think is of national security importance, but also kind of an existential threat that we face as a country.”
Notably, Sinema’s CNN appearance was not her first acclaim of the Trump administration’s AI policy. She previously co-authored a glowing report on the administration’s approach to the industry for Hogan Lovells’ own website, which ends by encouraging companies to reach out to the firm.
But Sinema’s lack of disclosure of AI conflicts of interest is not all. A longtime ally of the cryptocurrency industry, she took a job with industry giant Coinbase less than a month after leaving office. Seemingly eager to please her new paymasters and ensure Coinbase remains in good standing with the Trump administration, the former senator spent a decent amount of the interview heaping praise on Sacks, who’s not only charged with crafting Trump’s AI policies, but leads the White House’s crypto work as well.
Sinema followed this up by saying she was “working with” an AI company “that uses AI to identify gaps in kind of the pharmaceutical industry and look for orphan drugs that have been left behind, or diseases where we could use existing drugs to apply to other diseases” (possibly through the aforementioned AI Healthcare Coalition). But this offhand mention of her collaboration leaves a lot to be desired in terms of basic disclosure, and seems to imply collaboration on the AI center she helped found at Arizona State University, not a client advisor relationship.
Just before the end of the interview, Sinema managed to squeeze in one last plug for the industry she is apparently so passionate about, saying that she was partnering with OpenAI for charitable work to assist children with learning disabilities (OpenAI was, until recently, a client of Hogan Lovells).
I’m no business strategist, but it seems to me that CNN’s bottom line would do better if the network simply had these firms pay for advertisement slots. Choosing to run this shameful segment, which was essentially the same as a commercial, is a disservice to the network’s viewers.
