Senate Must Scrutinize Secretary of State Nominee Blinken’s Lobbying, Including Work for Google and Facebook

*** PRESS RELEASE***

For Immediate Release

January 19, 2021

Contact: Adam Savit at [email protected] or (202) 835–9077

Today the Senate Foreign Relation Committee will hold a confirmation hearing for Antony Blinken, President-elect Biden’s nominee to be the next Secretary of State.  Although the Center for Security Policy has significant differences with Blinken on foreign policy questions, especially his support for the deeply-flawed 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, we recognize these positions are those of the president-elect and do not constitute sufficient grounds for the Senate not to confirm him.

We do have ethical and conflict of interest concerns about Blinken related to the lobbying and consulting firm he helped found in 2017, West Exec Advisers.  According to press reports, this firm also employed Avril Haines, Biden’s nominee to be Director of National Intelligence, and Jen Psaki, who will be Biden’s White House Communications Director.

Blinken reportedly worked with West Exec clients Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Uber, AT&T, FedEx, LinkedIn, the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences and McKinsey & Company.

West Exec Advisers has refused to release its client list.  Senate Republicans reportedly are irritated that Blinken has not been adequately forthcoming about his work for the firm.

West Exec Advisers staff avoided registering as lobbyists by claiming they served as “strategic advisers.” Blinken, Haines and Psaki would advise big-dollar clients on how to affect legislation and government policy without actually bringing them to meetings with or contacting government officials.  Many government watchdog groups see this as a slippery distinction that Washington insiders use to evade lobbying registration laws.

Blinken suspended his work for the firm to work for the Biden campaign, so the Biden transition’s rule on not hiring people who lobbied within one year did not apply to him.

Blinken’s work for major U.S. and foreign corporations raise ethical questions.  His work for Facebook and Google at a time that both firms are censoring conservative speech raise more questions.  It is crucial that the Senate Foreign Relations press Blinken to fully explain and disclose his work for West Exec Advisers and reveal its full client list.  Biden’s nominee to be Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines also must be pressed on this issue.

Finally, the Biden administration needs to clearly spell out its rules on hiring lobbyists and restrictions on lobbying by Biden officials after they leave office.