PHILADELPHIA — The main stage at the Democratic National Convention will look a bit like K Street tonight. A handful of former lobbyists, quasi-lobbyists, and close friends of lobbyists will speak on Hillary Clinton’s behalf Tuesday.
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will speak in prime time tonight, just before former President Clinton. Albright left the State Department through the revolving door and launched the Albright Group, a consulting firm, which later merged with a lobbying firm. Alright Stonebridge does not disclose her clients, but from media reports and her colleagues’ disclosures we know the client list includes Elliot Management. We don’t know which foreign governments and multinational corporations have filled Albright’s bank accounts.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe is a career insider, leveraging political connections to benefit clients. There’s not enough room to list them all here. Here’s a good piece by Mother Jones.
What’s different about McAuliffe is his brazen mixing of his campaign fundraising activity and attempts to enrich himself personally. Many of McAuliffe’s business deals have come about due to his place in the political cosmos, not because he possesses a wealth of business skill.
Here’s another from the Washington Post. This man — the walking embodiment of a rigged system in which the insiders get rich off their connections to power — will speak today at the DNC.
Sen. Chuck Schumer is not a lobbyist yet, but he basically operates the revolving door. Among active elected officials, Schumer is tied for second on the “Revolving Door” scorecard at OpenSecrets.org, with 35 former or current staffers showing up in that database.
Schumer’s former staff include: lobbyist Izzy Klein (Pfizer, GM, Citigroup, and Solar City are among his clients); Amy Friend, a managing director at Wall Street advisory firm Promontory Group (who announced her hire to potential bank clients by explaining she kinda wrote Dodd-Frank); and Carmencita Whonder, whom Schumer deployed to K Street to rake up private equity and hedge fund clients, from whom she then raised money for Schumer — this all made possible by his privately prodding hedge funds to lobby and contribute more.
Eric Holder, of course, was President Obama’s first attorney general. He was also a revolving-door K Street lobbyist. After his time in the Clinton administration, Holder went to K Street where his clients included McAuliffe-connected, scandal plagued failed telecom firm Global Crossing, and something else called Large Scale Biology.
Cecille Richards will speak tonight. She runs Planned Parenthood, the largest player by far in the abortion industry (it holds about one third of the U.S. abortion market), and the industry’s leading lobbying force.
And of course, the keynoter of the night is former President Bill Clinton, who together with his wife, have perfected the art of parlaying public service into private wealthy by helping special interests.
Quite a departure from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
