Trump is the first President to appoint lobbyists to run federal agencies? I'll bet the remaining living Presidents are all going "man, why didn't I think of that?
Goldman Sachs Personnel in the Barack Obama White House Lael Brainard: Brainard is the United States Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs in the administration of Obama. Gregory Craig: Former White House Counsel, Recently hired by Goldman Sachs. Thomas Donilon: Deputy National Security Adviser (despite having a career that is mostly involved with domestic politics). Donilon was a lawyer at O’Melveny and Myers and made almost $4 million representing meltdown clients including Penny Pritzker (of Chicago) and Goldman Sachs. William C. Dudley: President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, partner and managing director at Goldman Sachs and was the firm’s chief U.S. economist for a decade. Douglas Elmendorf: Obama Director of the Congressional Budget Office in January 2009, replaced Furman as Director of the Hamilton Project (Note that the Hamilton Project was funded by Robert Rubin and Goldman Sachs). Rahm Emanuel: Obama Chief of Staff, on the payroll of Goldman Sachs receiving $3,000 per month from the firm to “introduce us to people”, in the words of one Goldman Sachs partner at the time. Dianna Farrell: Obama Administration: Deputy Director, National Economic Council. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Financial Analyst. Stephen Friedman: Obama Administration: Chairman, President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Board Member (Chairman 1990-94; Director 2005). Michael Frohman: Robert Rubin’s Chief of Staff while Rubin served as Secretary of the Treasury and an Obama “head hunter” according to “Rubin Proteges Change Their Tune as They Join Obama’s Team” in the New York Times. Anne Fudge: Appointed to Obama budget deficit reduction committee. Fudge has been the PR craftsman for some of America’s largest corporations. She sits, according to the Washington Post, as a Trustee of the Brookings Institution within which the Hamilton Project is embedded. Jason Furman: Directed economic policy for the Obama Presidential Campaign, served as the second Director of the Hamilton Project after Peter Orszag’s departure for the Obama administration. Mark Gallogly: Sits on the Hamilton Project’s advisory council. He is also, according to Wikipedia, currently a member of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Timothy Geithner: Secretary of the Treasury, former President of the New York Fed. a former managing director of Goldman Sachs. Gary Gensler: Obama Administration: Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Partner and Co-head of Finance. Michael Greenstone: The 4th Director of the Hamilton Project. Just as attorney Craig went from advising Obama to defending Goldman Sachs against the SEC complaint, Greenstone has used the revolving door to go from an Obama economic adviser position to one of the Goldman Sachs outlets – in this case its think tank embedded in the Brookings Institution and funded by Goldman Sachs and Robert Rubin. All 3 previous Directors of the Hamilton Project work in the Obama administration. Robert Hormats: Obama Administration: Undersecretary for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs, State Department. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Vice Chairman, Goldman Sachs Group. Neel Kashkari: Served under Treasury Secretary Paulson (a former Goldman Sachs CEO) and was kept on by Obama after his inauguration for a limited period to work on TARP oversight. Former Vice President of Goldman Sachs in San Francisco where he led Goldman’s Information Technology Security Investment Banking practice. Karen Kornbluh: (Sometimes called “Obama’s brain”) Obama Ambassador to the OECD. Was Deputy Chief of Staff to ‘Mr. Goldman Sachs’, Robert Rubin. Jacob “Jack” Lew: The United States Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources. According to Wikipedia, Lew sits on the Brookings-Rubin funded Hamilton Project Advisory Board. He also served with Robert Rubin in Bill Clinton’s cabinet as Director of OMB. David Lipton: Now on Obama’s National Economic Council and the National Security Council. Lipton worked with Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner on the US response to the Asian financial crisis of the 1990’s. MergeFoundations reports that Lipton worked closely with Robert Rubin. Emil Michael: White House Fellow. Former investment banker with Goldman Sachs. Eric Mindich: Former chief strategy officer of New York-based Goldman Sachs, started Eton Park in 2004 with $3.5 billion, at the time one of the biggest hedge-fund launches ever. …..Hank Paulson Tipped Off The Goldman-Led “Plunge Protection Team” About Fannie Bankruptcy 7 Weeks In Advance (2007): Goldman operative Eric Mindich in the hierarchy of the Asset Managers’ committee of the President’s Working Group on Capital Markets, better known of course as the PPT (in 2009). Philip Murphy: Obama Administration: Ambassador to Germany. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Head of Goldman Sachs, Frankfurt. Barack Obama: Obama owes his career to Goldman Sachs which was not only his biggest financial contributor when he ran for the Presidency, but was also his biggest contributor when he ran for the US Senate. Peter Orszag: Obama Budget Director. Founding director of the Hamilton Project, funded by Goldman Sachs and Robert Rubin. Wikipedia indicates that Robert Rubin, Goldman’s ex-CEO, was one of Orszag’s mentors. Mark Patterson: Obama Administration: Chief of Staff to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geitner. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Lobbyist 2005-2008; Vice President for Government Relations. Mark Peterson: Chief of staff to Timothy Geithner. Goldman Sachs Vice President and lobbyist. Steve Ratner: The shady billionaire financier who Obama appointed as his “car czar” and who resigned after it was revealed that his company, the Quadrangle Group, was apparently involved in “pay to play” for a billion dollars or so of New York State pension funds, and was under possible indictment by the New York AG and the SEC. Sits on the Advisory Council of the Goldman funded Hamilton Project. Robert Reischauer: A member of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission from 2000-2009 and was its Vice Chair from 2001-2008. He too sits on the Hamilton Project’s advisory board. Alice Rivlin: Obama named Alice Rivlin to his so-called Deficit Reduction Commission. James Rubin: Son of Robert Rubin. Served as a ‘headhunter’ for Obama per the New York Times article, “Rubin Proteges Change Their Tune as They Join Obama’s Team”. Gene Sperling: Advisor to Timothy Geithner on bailouts. Sperling paid by Goldman Sachs for one year of consulting work. Adam Storch: Obama Managing Executive of the Security and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement. Former Vice President in the Goldman Sachs Business Intelligence Group. Larry Summers: Obama chief economic adviser and head of the National Economic Counsel. Worked under Robert Rubin at Goldman Sachs. John Thain: Obama Administration: Advisor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Former Goldman Sachs Title: President and Chief Operating Officer (1999-2003).
There are 65 former lobbyists currently working in the Obama administration There are, according to Post analysis of data from the Center for Responsive Politics, 65 current members of the Obama administration who at one point lobbied the federal government. Combined, they worked for over 500 years for firms that lobby the government -- compared to the little over 320 years they have spent with the Obama administration. The flow of employees from the private sector into government and back out is well-established and, often, hardly worth mentioning. Graphic designers from most media outlets with a location in the nation's capital have probably at some point been asked to Photoshop a revolving door onto the Capitol building. But this is the Obama administration, which trumpeted its anti-lobbyist position in an ethics statement on its transition Web site. "Free the Executive Branch from Special Interest Influence," one header reads, right above "Close the Revolving Door on Former and Future Employers." It's an administration that quickly announced no lobbyists would be allowed to serve on advisory panels -- a policy that survived until this week, after a legal challenge. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-obama-administration/?utm_term=.a3670595faa7
But he did say he was going to drain the swamp. It ain't drained. He said he was going to build a wall and Mexico would pay for it. No wall and no peso's coming in to build it. Two really big promises that he has completely failed to deliver. Let's face it, if the dems weren't so f'n looney we'd be none too pleased with Trump other than his SC appointments, which I grant you is huge, but it looks there's more downside than up moving forward. 2020 is going to be a real hold your nose election for the sane and rational among us, and that goes for both parties.