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March 29, 2021
White House Personal Financial Disclosures
The Revolving Door Project has been requesting personal financial disclosures, or Form 278e’s, since the White House made them available. While we are still waiting to receive many requests back, we wanted to share the ones we have received with the public as quickly as possible by summarizing relevant findings for each White House appointee.

March 29, 2021
Pharma In The White House: Financial Disclosures Reveal Officials' Stake In Vaccine Manufacturers
Financial disclosures revealed that numerous high level Biden White House officials have financial holdings in vaccine manufacturers, while some of them are involved in vaccine distribution talks.
March 23, 2021
Revolver Spotlight: Jonathan Su
His work for Latham & Watkins included representing a high-profile convicted sex offender, a Republican Senator who profitted off the COVID-19 pandemic while deceiving the public, and a pharmaceutical company that created an artificial shortage of life-saving medicine.

March 23, 2021
Revolver Spotlight: Abigail Seldin
Progressive groups successfully pressed Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to replace the acting head of the office that oversees the nation’s $1.5 trillion student loan portfolio in recent weeks. Now, Abigail Seldin, a former student loan company executive, is reportedly a candidate to lead that office.

March 23, 2021
Revolver Spotlight: Elizabeth Rosenberg
Elizabeth Rosenberg, a lesser-known Obama-era official, is being considered to lead the Treasury Department’s Terrorism and Financial Intelligence unit. Her record designing painful economic sanctions, supporting fossil fuel industry-friendly policies, and helping powerful corporations gain close access to the highest levels of government is cause for alarm, writes Vishal Shankar.

March 22, 2021
Keystone XL Investor Susan Rice Has Kept Up Her Fossil Fuel Investments — And Now Oversees Tribal Relations Across The Executive Branch
Having a pollution investor in charge of the DPC should set off alarm bells for anyone worried about climate change — in other words, everyone.

March 22, 2021
Jake Sullivan Advised Microsoft On Policy, And Now Coordinates With Microsoft On Policy. What Could Go Wrong?
ullivan, like Secretary of State Blinken and others in the Biden national security apparatus, spent the Trump years as a “consultant,” better termed as a shadow lobbyist, for Big Tech and other industries.

March 16, 2021
Revolver Spotlight: Manny Alvarez
Alvarez only re-entered the regulatory world after six years at Affirm, a fintech e-lender that offers loans up to 30 percent APR under sometimes confusing terms at the point of sale, so consumers rarely have the opportunity to shop around or read the fine print for an informed decision.

March 16, 2021
Revolver Spotlight: Sonal Shah
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.

March 16, 2021
FSOC 101: How Each Member Of The Financial Stability Oversight Council Can Fight Climate Change
Title 1 of the Dodd-Frank Act Title established the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) just over a decade ago. Prior to its arrival, there was no cross-agency government body tasked with protecting the financial system from systemic risks. FSOC was created to avoid repeating the mistakes of the 2008 financial crisis and to be a safeguard against financial practices with the potential to wreak global havoc.

March 16, 2021
A Slam Dunk Climate Opportunity For Biden: Five Open Seats On The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board
President Biden is being presented with a straightforward, simple opportunity to make good on his promise to take a whole-of-government approach to fighting climate change. Appointing climate leaders who will take urgent climate action even if their job descriptions do not explicitly mention the environment is one of the easiest and most important ways Biden can display integrity.
March 16, 2021
Revolver Spotlight: Einer Elhauge
Reports that Harvard Law Professor Einer Elhauge is being considered for a role in the Biden Administration should be treated with extreme caution due to his history of ties to Big Tech and work for the Republican Florida legislature in 2000. Although we at RDP applaud Elhauge’s recent pivot to support strengthening antitrust laws, we urge the Biden Administration to hold appointees to the highest possible standard. In particular, helping promulgate the absurd theory in 2000 that state legislatures can overrule elections conducted under laws they have passed should be disqualifying for any individual attempting to serve in the Biden Administration.

March 10, 2021
Biden Ethics Pledge Alone Will Not Insulate the Administration from Conflicts of Interest
On President Biden’s first day in office, he made clear that, after the Trump administration’s fantastically corrupt reign, restoring trust in the federal government’s senior leadership would be a priority. His executive order on ethics, signed within hours of his inauguration, went further than any other towards slowing the revolving door and limiting conflicts of interest while in office. Subsequent appointments make clear, however, that these elevated standards are still not enough. Simply following the letter of the order will leave significant room for conflicts of interest to poison the administration’s actions and public trust.

March 08, 2021
Attn John Kerry: Mark Gallogly Is Loyal To Profit, Not Climate
John Kerry, President Biden’s international “Climate Envoy”, appears to want bold climate change policy. Kerry was a leader in developing the framework for the first UN climate talks in 1992, co-authored cap-and-trade legislation back in 2009 when it could have possibly been useful, and was a major driver of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

March 05, 2021
The State of Independent Agency Nominations - Update for March 2021
It has been over a month since President Joe Biden assumed the presidency. So far, thirteen of his Cabinet picks have received Senate confirmation, while the remaining ten who will require it wend their way through the process. In the meantime, the administration continues to announce names for the nearly 4000 other positions it will need to fill. With only a few exceptions, however, picks for one class of appointment — to independent agency boards — have not yet been forthcoming. The Biden administration undoubtedly faces many competing priorities, but these nominations must rise to the top.