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What is the spirit of a revolver? Perhaps it’s best described as someone who advances “the increasingly influential private-sector approach to world-changing.” That, after all, is how Anand Giridharadas, in his essential book Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing The World, once described Sonal Shah’s current work.

Jamie Gorelick, a high-powered lawyer who defended the city of Chicago after the police murder of Laquan McDonald and sits on the board of Amazon, is a case study of the influence big corporate law firms wield behind the scenes in Washington — and she has friends like Merrick Garland in high places in the Biden administration. The Revolving Door Project’s Elias Alsbergas and Max Moran spoke with Jacobin’s Alex N. Press about what Gorelick’s ties to Garland could mean for the Biden Administration’s Justice Department.

RDP’s Industry Agenda series will explore how different industries seek to influence executive personnel decisions.

Lately, fintech-funded individuals like Michael Barr have been rumored for powerful financial regulatory positions, despite the fact that this would leave them in charge of decisions directly affecting the firms they advised.

The right-wing’s revolving door attacks on President Biden are intensifying, with a particular focus on the new President’s ties to Big Tech. Biden must beware the potency of these attacks and address them head-on.

Racial Wealth Gap Expert Mehrsa Baradaran is an Alternative to Michael Barr, a Wall Street and Big Tech Ally.

Big Tech has a huge stake in who Biden ultimately staffs his antitrust and tech regulators. These individuals will decide how aggressively to carry out Biden’s promises of reining in the political and market power of these companies. If Big Tech gets its way, Biden will staff his antitrust teams with its attorneys and allies, who have pushed back against calls to break up these monopolies and protected them against regulation and enforcement. But if Biden wants to keep his campaign promises to take on monopolies, he must shut the revolving door between the federal government and Big Tech. That starts by rejecting for top jobs the following Big Tech allies.

As President Biden continues to staff his administration, the nascent fintech industry will be keeping close watch on the personnel appointed to key regulatory positions. It would be prudent to keep private fintech evangelists away from the positions that are responsible for regulating these firms and cryptocurrencies.

If appointed to Biden’s OCC, Barr will confront one major new question for the primary federal regulator of banks: how to handle the emergent “fintech” industry of lending and payments apps. Disturbingly, Barr’s history advising and investing in the fintech industry suggests an approach similar to Trump’s own fintech-friendly stooge, former acting Comptroller Brian Brooks.

The vast majority of Americans believe that the monopoly power of tech companies is a major problem for the economy and a corrupting political influence. Biden should heed these concerns and avoiding appointing Big Tech insiders and allies of monopolies to head crucial antitrust regulatory posts at the Department of Justice.

Fresh off defending Donald Trump’s historic corruption, conservatives have begun attacking President-elect Biden for his nominees’ ties to Big Tech, Wall Street, and corporate lobbying. While these attacks are transparently hypocritical, they are not without factual substance and could prove to be a major political liability for Democrats unless they commit to adopting much-needed ethics reforms.

Biden has nominated Pete Buttigieg to become the nation’s next transportation secretary, despite his having almost no experience in the field. Our Max Moran explains this curious nomination and why it signals a return to a dysfunctional “business as usual” politics.

Use this ongoing tracker to monitor the ties to Big Tech from individuals on the agency review teams, individuals who have been officially designated as nominees, and others who we suspect are jockeying for posts right now.

Pete Buttigieg is now a top contender for Secretary of Transportation in the Biden Administration, but his tendency to shift policy positions based on the preferences of large donors and industry lobbyists remains a significant concern if he were chosen to head DOT.