Govt / Wall Street Revolving Door: High Ex-Obama Aide To Defend GS v SEC
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The little item we’re going to bring you in a moment illustrates two important points:
the first is how incredibly close and fast-moving the “revolving door” is between the power centers in Washington DC & Wall Street;
The little item we’re going to bring you in a moment illustrates two important points:
The little item we’re going to bring you in a moment illustrates two important points:
the first is how incredibly close and fast-moving the “revolving door” is between the power centers in Washington DC & Wall Street;
The little item we’re going to bring you in a moment illustrates two important points:
the first is how incredibly close and fast-moving the “revolving door” is between the power centers in Washington DC & Wall Street;
and second, how it’s easy to interpret this as yet another quiet but significant indicator re our prediction the SEC v Goldman matter is going to be settled LONG before it gets anywhere near a courtroom. [br]
President Obama’s former White House counsel is now representing Goldman Sachs as the giant financial firm responds to allegations that it defrauded investors, according to this item in the New York Times.
“I’m not going to characterize the White House’s feelings on jobs that members of the administration take after they’ve left the administration,” Bill Burton, a White House spokesman, told reporters aboard Air Force One as Mr. Obama returned to Washington from a California fund-raising trip.
Greg Craig, one of Washington’s most prominent lawyers, was a top adviser to Mr. Obama during his campaign and went on to serve as White House counsel, but then left after a year of tension over issues like closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
He went to Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, which has long represented Goldman, and the financial firm engaged him to advise it on litigation strategy before the Securities and Exchange Commission filed its civil suit last week.
Mr. Burton indicated that the White House was surprised by the news. [br]
“We weren’t consulted about the particular position,” he said, “but that’s not something that we would have a heads-up on necessarily.”
The White House seemed sensitive to the revolving-door quality of a top Obama adviser now representing a financial giant that has been accused of wrongdoing,
especially at a moment when the president is lobbying for legislation to tighten regulation of Wall Street firms.
Asked about Mr. Craig’s new job, Mr. Burton recited the president’s ethics policy banning former White House officials from lobbying for two years after leaving office.
“I assume that people who leave the administration know those rules and are following those rules,” Mr. Burton said.
But the policy applies only to lobbying as defined under federal law and does not restrict former officials from providing advice to clients with business or other interactions with the federal government.
“I am a lawyer, not a lobbyist,” Mr. Craig said Tuesday. “Goldman Sachs has hired me as a lawyer – to provide legal advice and to assist in its legal representation – and that is what I am doing”
