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June 08, 2023

Andrea Beaty

Press Release Anti-MonopolyEthics in GovernmentFTCRevolving Door

PRESS RELEASE: Revolving Door Lawyers Aim To Dismantle Antitrust Enforcement Authorities

Cravath, Swaine & Moore’s Christine Varney, a former head of the US Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, and other BigLaw lawyers representing Illumina and Grail filed a brief this week seeking to secure a merger which the FTC said would “diminish innovation in the U.S. market” for cancer detection tests. Revolving Door Project Research Director Andrea Beaty released the following statement concerning the brief and its authors.

June 07, 2023

Emma Marsano

Newsletter

Corporate Crackdown

Deadly Corporate Misconduct Can Be Boring. Biden Must Keep His Focus on Cracking Down, Anyway.

Corporate wrongdoing doesn’t always resemble the stories that tend to make headlines—the dramatic corruption scandals, bald-faced lies, and egregious instances of fraud. Sometimes, as we at Revolving Door Project strive to highlight, life-threatening corporate actions are enabled by quiet bureaucratic processes and decisions, ushered along by captured political appointees who refuse to hold profit-hungry corporations accountable.

June 01, 2023 | The American Prospect

Timi Iwayemi

Op-Ed 2024 ElectionEthics in GovernmentExecutive Branch

How to Cover a Presidential Campaign

As the past six years have clearly illuminated, hollowing out government capacity and rewarding loyalists is at the heart of the Trump gospel, and leveraging power is DeSantis’s modus operandi as well. As coverage of the Republican primaries ramps up, the press must focus on how this style of executive branch mismanagement endangers democracy and the public interest. That’s more important than trying to figure out if DeSantis has the personality to sell this anti-democratic vision.

May 30, 2023

Henry Burke

Blog Post

CryptocurrencyEconomic PolicyLarry SummersTech

Being A Board Member Is Hard, Just Ask Larry Summers

Former Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers recently learned that making business decisions can be hard even if you’re an economist. Or, alternatively, Summers has again proven to be a real-life embodiment of an economic “rational individual;” willing to do whatever maximizes his personal interests, regardless of broader consequences. If true, this further demonstrates why the press needs to end their reliance on Summers for economic speculation – because his judgment is for sale.

May 26, 2023

Jeff Hauser

Press Release Ethics in GovernmentExecutive BranchGovernanceGovernment CapacityMedia Accountability

RELEASE: Revolving Door Project Reacts to Biden’s Debt Ceiling Cave & the Media’s Incompetent Coverage

In response to the emergence of the structure of a potential deal between President Biden and Speaker McCarthy, Revolving Door Project Executive Director Jeff Hauser issued the following statement: 

“There are three aspects to the substance and coverage of this debate that have been infuriating.”

May 24, 2023 | Revolving Door Project Newsletter

Toni Aguilar Rosenthal

Newsletter

Congressional OversightEthics in GovernmentGovernance

Who’s Going To Keep Corporations Honest?

The Washington Post last week ran a delightful little synopsis of Senator Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) true passion: congressional oversight. Bernie is revered for his willingness to hold corporations and their CEOs accountable for their villainy, and how he does so with extraordinary dexterity. Be it by ruthlessly interrogating Big Pharma executives for their murderous price gouging of lifesaving treatments or humiliating Howard Schultz for being a whiny billionaire union-buster, Bernie Sanders makes congressional oversight hearings fun. The fun he makes for himself and for the public he strives to give real voice to through speaking truth to power is not just gratifying; it also helps sharpen congressional oversight into a tool to actually achieve something.

May 22, 2023

Jeff Hauser

Press Release Department of JusticeEthics in Government

RELEASE: The Justice Department Should Not Defend The Legal Incoherence That Is The Debt Ceiling

On Friday, May 19, the National Association of Government Employees filed an emergency motion in their lawsuit against President Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. NAGE urged the Massachusetts District Court to issue a preliminary injunction holding that the debt ceiling violates the separation of powers and Presentment Clause set forth in Articles I and II of the U.S. Constitution. 

May 19, 2023

Toni Aguilar Rosenthal

Blog Post

98 Organizations and Individuals Call on the IPCC to Uplift Settled Science and to Reject the Influence of the Global Meat Industry

This morning, 98 organizations and individuals sent a letter to calling on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to affirm its independence from private and corporate interests, to maintain a strict ethics regime that avoids even the appearance of interference or impropriety, and to boldly uplift the huge body of existing climate science that affirms the devastating climate consequences of animal agriculture and the global meat industry. Read their letter to Dr. Hoesung Lee, Chairman of the IPCC here.

May 17, 2023 | The Sling

Dylan Gyauch-Lewis

Op-Ed Executive BranchIndependent Agencies

Biden Should Relieve Martin Oberman from His Chairmanship at the Surface Transportation Board

Just weeks after a series of high profile train derailments headlined by the disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, the Surface Transportation Board (STB) decided to double down on the current railroad oligopoly. The STB approved a merger between Canadian Pacific Railway and Kansas City Southern Railway Company, cutting the number of major “Class I” rail companies in the United States from seven down to six. This decision is diametrically opposed to the public interest and seriously undermines trust in rail regulators.