A top aide to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has cashed out this week, joining a lobbying and consulting firm with a client list that includes the nation’s largest banks.
Damon Munchus is at least the third top Obama official who has exited the administration through the revolving door that opens to K Street — in keeping with President Obama’s ethics rules, but contrary to his clean-government rhetoric. The White House Web site last April stated that Obama was “cracking down on special interests and, in particular, lobbying abuses,” by issuing “the toughest rules in history closing the revolving door between K Street and the executive branch.” But he hasn’t “closed” that door.
First, there are the 45 former lobbyists currently in senior administration positions. More important is the trickle of administration officials already leaving for K Street. Munchus is the latest. His new employers bragged in a press release Monday, “One of the first senior-level officials to leave the Obama Treasury Department is headed to the Cypress Group, a financial services lobbying and consulting firm based in Washington, D.C.” Munchus had served as Geithner’s liaison to Capitol Hill.
Munchus will take those skills and connections refined on the taxpayer dime, and put them to work for Cypress clients, which include Citigroup, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, the Managed Funds Association (the lobby group for hedge funds), PricewaterhouseCoopers, Travelers, US Bank, and Wachovia Corp. Cypress Advocacy, the firm’s lobbying arm, also lists top mortgage lenders Wells Fargo and Bank of America as clients, although the firm is not currently registered to represent them before the federal government.
Munchus, who could not be reached for this column, knows his way around business-government intersection, having worked as a senior financial analyst in Fannie Mae’s “credit-portfolio strategies group,” according to his 2002 wedding announcement in the New York Times.
Fannie Mae, a government-sponsored enterprise, thrived during the housing bubble on its implicit guarantee from the taxpayers. Munchus donated $1,000 to Obama’s 2004 Senate run, and, as an investment banker at the Jeffries Group, he gave $2,300 to Obama’s presidential run. Munchus then served on Obama’s transition team before going to work for Geithner at Treasury. Obama’s first executive order restricted the lobbying of those who leave the administration, but it didn’t ban lobbying.
For the rest of Obama’s presidency, Munchus is prohibited from talking to senior administration officials on behalf of his clients. He can, however, lobby lower-level administration employees, and he can lobby Congress, too. You can bet he will. Munchus is managing director of Cypress’ new office in New York. The firm e-mailed me a description of that role: “At Cypress Advocacy, Mr. Munchus will advocate on behalf of Cypress clients, primarily in the financial services and capital markets spaces. At Cypress Advisory, Mr. Munchus will support the firm’s research and analyst teams, as well as support the firm’s investment management clients directly.”
Munchus wasn’t the first politico to parlay an Obama administration job into a plush K Street gig — that honor likely goes to Oscar Ramirez. Ramirez worked on Capitol Hill for Rep. Hilda Solis, D-Calif., and was a top regional volunteer for the Obama campaign. When President Obama placed Solis at the head of the Labor Department, Ramirez followed her there as a “special assistant to the secretary.”
By May 2009, Ramirez was a principal at the Podesta Group, a lobbying firm co-founded by John Podesta, Obama’s transition director. Ramirez’s clients include Bank of America, Credit Suisse, Genzyme, Google, Lockheed Martin, and Wells Fargo. Since cashing out, Ramirez has given about $8,000 to Democratic candidates and committees.
Grant Leslie was a senior adviser to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack until she joined the Glover Park Group as a vice president. Her earlier gigs included a stint on the Obama transition team (guiding Vilsack’s Senate confirmation), and jobs on Capitol Hill for Sen. Ken Salazar, now secretary of the interior, and Sen. Tom Daschle, now a confidant of the president. Leslie hasn’t registered yet as a lobbyist, but her online profile says she “specializes in government relations, strategic planning and public policy.”
The government-to-K Street revolving door hurts the country. Perhaps Munchus’ actions at Treasury weren’t influenced at all by the lure of a lucrative job representing the largest banks. There’s no reason to posit Ramirez and Leslie were serving their future clients rather than the public interest. But as long as that revolving door spins, corruption has a way to sneak in.
Timothy P. Carney, The Examiner’s lobbying editor, can be reached at [email protected]. He writes an op-ed column that appears on Friday.
