April 25, 2022
Blog Post 2020 Election/TransitionClimateEthics in GovernmentExecutive BranchJeff ZientsRevolving Door
What You Need To Know About The Contenders For Biden’s Next Chief Of Staff
Nearly halfway through President Biden’s second year in office, with midterms on the horizon and senior staff either burning out or eager to sell out, “Transition 2.0” — the rapid departure of said senior staff with an influx of new personnel — is growing closer. One position we’re keeping a close eye on is Biden’s next Chief of Staff. Currently filled by Ron Klain, this is Biden’s de facto power broker. He helps the president make decisions and acts as a gatekeeper for the many, MANY forces, good and bad, who’d like to influence the president.
April 25, 2022
We All Know Elon Musk Is Buying Twitter To Help Him Get Away With Stock Fraud, Right?
Elon Musk is not just purchasing Twitter because, by all appearances, he is a very sad man who is desperate for other very sad men to think he is cool.
April 14, 2022
Blog Post CryptocurrencyEthics in GovernmentFederal ReserveFinancial RegulationFintechRevolving Door
Michael Barr is the Wrong Man to Stop the Next Financial Crisis
Over a decade after the financial crisis, few would still dispute that the revolving door between financial regulators and the financial industry helped pave the way for economic disaster. In the years preceding the crash, regulators who came from the country’s largest banks and planned to promptly return to them, removed regulatory restraints and turned a blind eye to the predictably dangerous effects (see, e.g. Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan). In the next administration, different regulators drawn from the same well let the fraudsters off the hook and left the working people who had fallen victim to them out to dry.
April 12, 2022
Want To Show That Dems Have Learned Nothing Since 2008? Give Michael Barr A Fed Seat
“Michael Barr was too close to fintech and cryptocurrency schemers to be the Comptroller of the Currency, and he is still too close to them to be Vice Chair for Supervision.”
April 12, 2022 | The American Prospect
Biden Must Block Crypto’s Access to the Revolving Door
Fortunately, Biden has the means to stop at least one aspect of crypto’s campaign in its tracks. Through an executive order, he can cut off crypto’s access to the revolving door by barring the officials who are involved in developing regulations for the digital assets industry from working for it for at least four years. By rights, it should be a bare-minimum anti-corruption standard.
April 04, 2022 | The American Prospect
The Corporate Past Of Jeffrey Zients
Over the span of two decades, the health care companies that Zients controlled, invested in, and helped oversee were forced to pay tens of millions of dollars to settle allegations of Medicare and Medicaid fraud. They have also been accused of surprise-billing practices and even medical malpractice.
March 11, 2022
Hannah Story Brown Dylan Gyauch-Lewis
Press Release ClimateExecutive BranchFinancial RegulationIndependent AgenciesRevolving Door
Carbon Offset Legitimization Would Undermine Climate Progress, New Report Argues
The Revolving Door Project released a new “Industry Agenda” report today breaking down the systemic flaws and increasing relevance of the carbon offset industry as the favored greenwashing strategy for big industries and high-polluting nations. The report highlights the policies and executive branch agencies of interest to players in both voluntary and compliance carbon markets in the United States.
March 03, 2022
Revolver Spotlight: Michael Easley Jr. and the Office of the U.S. Attorneys
As officers with extraordinary latitude and immense authority within their districts, U.S. Attorneys have the ability to implement ambitious reforms to the federal legal landscape in a direct and immediate fashion. U.S. Attorneys also have incredible freedom to reorient the undercurrent priorities of the federal legal system and to center historically under prosecuted, but systemic nonetheless, crimes such as corporate and white collar malfeasance. Because of the incredible potential of the position, it is critical that these offices are prioritized in Biden’s staffing of the federal bureaucracy. However, as we have examined previously, the Biden administration has proven remarkably slow in its nominations process for U.S. Attorneys positions, seemingly in part due to an unwillingness to decisively abandon deference to a racist Senate decorum procedure known as blue slips.
March 02, 2022
Dylan Gyauch-Lewis Max Moran Toni Aguilar Rosenthal
Blog Post Corporate CrackdownEthics in GovernmentExecutive BranchFederal ReserveFinancial RegulationIntellectual PropertyRevolving DoorTech
What Can Biden Actually DO From His State Of The Union?
Biden is still married to reviving a long-lost vision of bipartisanship. Never mind that the same Republicans he’s desperate to welcome into the fold literally did not applaud the ideal of bipartisanship he is pushing.
February 16, 2022 | The American Prospect
Bloomberg’s Military Investments Unknown as He Heads to Pentagon Position
I was curious if Bloomberg’s billions of dollars in investments might shed any light on his sudden interest in the Pentagon, so I looked up his financial disclosures from the 2020 Democratic primary. It turns out, they don’t exist.
January 27, 2022
Letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland Highlights Urgent Need for Resources in the Antitrust Division
The Justice Department plays a key role in President Biden’s vision of promoting “the interests of American workers, businesses, and consumers” through increasing competition, a plan which stands to be one the most enduring legacies of this administration. Your commitment to promote “competition by fairly and vigorously enforcing the antitrust laws,” along with the confirmation of Jonathan Kanter to Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division, are crucial steps forward in this vision.
January 25, 2022 | Talking Points Memo
Op-Ed 2020 Election/TransitionDepartment of JusticeExecutive BranchIndependent AgenciesRevolving Door
DOJ Civil: Progressives Should Pay Attention To The Actions Of This Powerful Litigating Division
If you search for the Civil Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Google, you’ll find an overwhelming majority of search results are for the Civil Rights Division. That’s unsurprising — the average person is typically more aware of the Civil Rights Division’s work. And it makes sense: As the “crown jewel” of the DOJ, the division performs the crucial work of enforcing the laws that prohibit discrimination.
January 24, 2022
Corporate Capture’s Circle of Life: The Copyright Office’s New Disney Lawyer
Since the Copyright Office provides expert recommendations and advice to Congress, the executive branch, and the courts, Disney’s recent employees may soon be advising government officials about copyright policy.
January 24, 2022
Revolver Spotlight: Tommy Beaudreau Is Big Oil’s Back Door to Biden’s Interior
President Biden nominated Tommy Beaudreau to be his Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior last April, and he was confirmed to the position by June. Unfortunately, though Biden seeks to be seen as a climate champion, Beaudreau was, and is, a uniquely terrible choice to help helm a climate-focused administration. His revolving door record is extensive, his conflicts of interest are nearly unprecedented, and his (re)installment at the highest circles of the Department of the Interior was ultimately a win for oil and gas conglomerates.
January 20, 2022 | Revolving Door Project Newsletter
Eleanor Eagan Toni Aguilar Rosenthal
2020 Election/TransitionDe-TrumpificationExecutive BranchRevolving Door
One Year On
It has now literally been a year since President Biden officially took office, yet Donald Trump’s legacy lives on across the federal landscape. Trump’s threat to governmental stability and Democratic policy priorities particularly endure in the bad-actor figures his administration installed in termed positions and within the federal bureaucracy.