The secretive pro-war consulting firm that’s become Biden’s Cabinet in waiting
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1352729178177732610
The website for WestExec Advisors includes a map depicting West Executive Avenue, the secure road on the White House grounds between the West Wing and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, as a way to show what the consulting firm can do for its clients.
“It is, quite literally, the road to the Situation Room, and it is the road everyone associated with WestExec Advisors has crossed many times en route to meetings of the highest national security consequences,” the firm says.
And staffers are poised to cross it again — en masse.
The firm, which now looks like a government-in-waiting for the next administration, was founded in 2017 by Tony Blinken, President-elect Joe Biden’s choice for secretary of State, and Michèle Flournoy, a top contender for secretary of Defense. And one of its former principals, Avril Haines, is Biden’s pick for director of national intelligence.
But little is known about WestExec’s client list. Because its staffers aren’t lobbyists, they are not required to disclose who they work for. They also aren’t bound by the Biden transition’s restrictions on hiring people who have lobbied in the past year.
Such high-powered Washington consulting firms are “the unintended consequence” of greater disclosure requirements for registered lobbyists, said Mandy Smithberger, director of the Center for Defense Information at the Project on Government Oversight.
By not directly advocating for federal dollars on behalf of their clients, they don't have to publicly divulge who is paying them and for what activities, such as the connections they make with government agencies, she said. But it is also impossible to assess the influence they have on federal expenditures.
At least 21 of the 38 WestExec employees listed on the firm’s website donated to the Biden campaign; Flournoy alone raised more than $100,000.
Five WestExec staffers — all veterans of the Obama administration — are on leave from the firm to help staff Biden’s review teams for the Pentagon, the Treasury Department, the Council of Economic Advisers and other agencies, which are charged with coordinating the transfer of power between outgoing Trump officials and Biden’s appointees.
Two other WestExec principals were among those who briefed Biden last week on national security: Bob Work, who served as deputy secretary of defense in the Obama administration and was asked to remain on for the first few months of the Trump administration, and David Cohen, a former deputy director of both the CIA and the Treasury Department who is also in the running for a top post.
Meanwhile, Jen Psaki, a former White House communications director under President Barack Obama who went on to work for WestExec, is now advising Biden’s transition team. And two other former WestExec hands, Lisa Monaco and Julianne Smith, are considered potential Biden administration hires.
In fact, WestExec was so prepared to storm a new Democratic West Wing that the firm negotiated a clause when renting its office space that states it can break the lease if members are called back to public service, the American Prospect reported this month.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/23/westexec-advisors-biden-cabinet-440072