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Biden Faces Pressure From Left Over Influence Industry Ties.
Many of his aides and close allies are veteran Washington hands who have profited from advising big corporations.
New York Times | August 1, 2020 | Kenneth P. Vogel and Glenn Thrush
FR Posted on 8/1/2020, 8:07:53 PM by karpov
WASHINGTON — It was one of the few issues on which President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. disagreed — how far to go in limiting the influence of lobbyists in government. The vice president privately complained that his boss’s effort to slam shut the revolving door between K Street and the administration would deprive it of experienced talent, and he bristled when Mr. Obama’s aides tried to block him from hiring a well-connected Washington operator who had lobbied for pharmaceutical and insurance companies, credit agencies and others.
Eight years later, that same confidant, Steve Ricchetti, is helping to run Mr. Biden’s presidential campaign. Also involved to varying degrees are other advisers, operatives, fund-raisers and allies with deep connections to Washington’s lucrative lobbying, communications and strategic consulting industry.
That puts Mr. Biden at odds with powerful elements of his party’s liberal base. Increasingly, they are expressing concern that the military contractors, Wall Street banks and other major corporations that paid members of Mr. Biden’s inner circle while they were out of government could hold disproportionate power in a Biden administration.
Politically, it could limit Mr. Biden’s ability to cast himself as the antidote to the anything-goes access peddling that has proliferated in President Trump’s administration. Under Mr. Trump, lobbyists and campaign donors have not only enjoyed access to the highest levels of the administration, but have been tapped to lead cabinet departments and have exerted remarkable influence over policies of intense interest to their former employers.
“It’s worrisome, broadly speaking, that a Biden administration could end up abiding by the unfortunate bipartisan norms of putting people in posts where they oversee industries or employers they just left,” said David Segal, co-founder of the liberal group Demand Progress.
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