Fauci warns of a surge “superimposed” on what we are already on as Biden’s foreign policy team faces an ethical test. It’s Monday and this is your political tip. Sign up here to receive On Politics in your inbox every weekday.
Trump with his grandchildren on the south lawn of the White House yesterday.
Biden faces an ethics test on some of his key foreign policy decisions.
Biden’s newly revealed foreign policy team is an attempt to restore a pre-Trump world order after four years of a government violating ethical protocols while undermining American loyalties abroad.
But as our reporter Eric Lipton and Kenneth P. Vogel If you write in a new investigation, it also presents the new president with its own early test on ethics and transparency.
A number of his decisions for top government positions were made by two large private companies, a consulting firm and a mutual fund, creating the potential for a revolving door between public and private work and setting the table for calls for incoming officials to reveal identity from previous customers.
WestExec Advisors was founded by Antony Blinken, Biden’s election as foreign minister, and Michèle Flournoy, who is considered a top candidate for his defense minister. A number of other officials who would become part of the Biden administration worked for WestExec, including Psaki and Avril Haines, whom Biden has named as his choice for director of national intelligence.
People familiar with the matter said Eric and Ken that clients of WestExec include Shield AI, a surveillance drone company that recently signed a multi-million dollar contract with the Air Force.
Blinken and Flournoy were also advisors to Pine Island Capital Partners, which invests hundreds of millions of dollars in military and aerospace companies in the defense industry, among others.
Flournoy has earned over $ 400,000 over the past two years as a board member for Booz Allen Hamilton, which has signed billions in federal contracts, including a contract signed in 2018 for cybersecurity services to six federal agencies. Flournoy was a particular target of criticism from progressives for their links to the defense industry.
Another person allegedly being considered for the position of Secretary of Defense, retired Army General Lloyd Austin, has also worked with Pine Island.
Republicans are already saying they want to focus on WestExec in confirmation hearings for Blinken and other candidates.
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