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The cabinet, which now looks like a government waiting for the next administration, was founded in 2017 by Tony Blinken, President-elect Joe Biden’s choice for the post of Secretary of State, and Michèle Flournoy, one of the main candidates for the post of Secretary of Defense. And one of its former directors, Avril Haines, is Biden’s choice for the director of national intelligence.
But little is known about WestExec’s client list. As employees are not lobbyists, they are not required to disclose who they work for. They are also not bound by Biden’s transition restrictions on hiring people who have lobbied in the past year.
The company is seen as emblematic of “the unintended consequence” of stricter disclosure requirements for registered lobbyists, said Mandy Smithberger, director of the Center for Defense Information at Project on Government Oversight.
“They avoid becoming registered lobbyists or foreign agents and instead become strategic consultants,” she said.
WestExec is charged with other former top Democratic national security and foreign policy officials who raised funds for the Biden campaign, joined his transition team, or served as unofficial advisers.
At least 21 of 38 WestExec employees listed on the company’s website donated to the Biden campaign; Flournoy alone raised over $ 100,000.
Five WestExec staff – all Obama administration veterans – are on leave from the company to help staff Biden’s review teams from the Pentagon, the Treasury Department, the Council of Economic Advisers and the other agencies, responsible for coordinating the transfer of power between outgoing Trump officials and those appointed by Biden.
Two other WestExec directors were among those who briefed Biden on national security last week: Bob Work, who served as Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Obama administration and was asked to stay for the first few months. of the Trump administration, and David Cohen, a former deputy director of the CIA and the Treasury Department who is also vying for a high-level post.
Meanwhile, Jen Psaki, the former White House communications director under President Barack Obama who later worked for WestExec, now advises Biden’s transition team. And two other former WestExec hands, Lisa Monaco and Julianne Smith, are seen as potential recruits for the Biden administration.
In fact, WestExec was so ready to storm a new Democratic West wing that the company negotiated a clause when leasing its office space that says it can break the lease if members are recalled. public function, The American Prospect reported this month.
WestExec is one of several Washington consulting firms made up of former diplomats, military officers and former White House aides who “often serve as government while waiting for the party that is out of power,” said Meredith McGehee, executive director of Issue One, a good government group in Washington.
And this is not the only company of its kind to have links with the country or the transition Biden.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, whom Biden chose Tuesday as ambassador to the United Nations, is senior vice president of the Albright Stonebridge group, the “trade diplomacy cabinet” created by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Biden’s review teams agencies also include at least three other members of Albright Stonebridge staff.
Nelson Cunningham, meanwhile, a co-founder of the “private sector diplomacy” firm McLarty Associates, which has advised clients such as Chevron and Walmart, was a Biden campaign consolidator and unofficially advised Biden’s team on policy.
There is nothing wrong with people working in such companies entering administration, said McGehee. But she urged Blinken and other potential Cabinet picks Biden who have worked at companies such as WestExec to go further than the law requires by publicly disclosing any clients they have performed important work for. (Those named by Biden will need to disclose their most recent clients once they enter government, but not the oldest.)
Yet ties between clients and members remain opaque due to the industry’s minimal application of influence in Washington, making it nearly impossible to know what specific projects they consulted with or with whom or which agencies. they have met.
The company co-founders have also hesitated to publicly discuss their consulting work.
POLITICO asked Flournoy in a recent interview to discuss how WestExec advisers might influence a Biden administration; all she would say is that the company is not a purely democratic company.
“We also have a number of prominent Republicans,” Flournoy said, quoting Meghan O’Sullivan, a former National Security Council official who worked for President George W. Bush.
Elbridge Colby, former Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration, who donated $ 500 to the president’s re-election campaign, is another senior advisor on the WestExec list.
Flournoy spoke a bit about WestExec’s work with Silicon Valley startups to land contracts at the Pentagon, where she sees the need to better take advantage of new technologies that are not necessarily the strong point of larger defense contractors and more traditional.
“The name of the game is how to enable the Defense Department to actually access this cutting edge commercial technology and adapt it for military use,” Flournoy said. in a 2019 podcast interview at the University of Chicago. “This is one of the things WestExec is trying to help. How do you let these small, high tech companies navigate the DoD and national security space? “
WestExec and Biden transition team declined to provide additional information on the identity of the company’s customers. And the Biden transition deferred questions to WestExec.
A person familiar with the inner workings of WestExec, however, said that Haines’ engagement with the company “was minimal – on average less than a day per month over the two years she worked as a consultant.
“The most important project she did for them was a public report sponsored by the Open Philanthropy Project on testing and evaluating deep learning systems,” the person said.
Yet WestExec was criticized in recent days, from progressive and watchdog groups who fear Flournoy has been too comfortable with the defense industry, citing donations to the think tank she co-founded, the Center for a New American Security, and his work for the Boston Consulting Group.
More recently, the project on government control published a review de Flournoy by two former defense policy veterans, citing these three affiliations, as well as his perch on the board of directors of Booz Allen Hamilton, a major Pentagon contractor.
But a WestExec employee rejected POGO’s claim that WestExec “helps defense companies market their products to the Pentagon and other agencies.”
“The most important part of the business is helping US companies with a global footprint navigate geopolitical risks,” said the person, who asked not to be named in order to discuss internal matters.
A spokesperson for Flournoy, meanwhile, also told POLITICO that in his previous job with the Boston Consulting Group, which is a strategic partner of WestExec, Flournoy “was not involved in developing business with DOD, period. final; it would have been a violation of his Obama administration ethics agreement.
Meanwhile, at Booz Allen Hamilton, Flournoy “also has no involvement in contracting or business development with any client, including the US government,” the spokesperson said.
But for WestExec, at least, the connection with Biden has become an increasingly powerful selling point, boasting that it “brings the full power of our network to help clients overcome emerging challenges and opportunities quickly,” as its website states.
In his most recent summary From the media exposure, the company also highlighted a number of WestExec team members who have been quoted or interviewed to talk about Biden’s likely plans related to relations between Israel, Iran, and US relations. Asian.
Work, the former Assistant Secretary of Defense who briefed Biden last week, makes no secret of his ties to the president-elect and his most trusted advisers.
“I speak with, of course, I know, almost everyone on the campaign personally, right?” he recently told POLITICO.
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