Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden, declared by most US mainstream news networks on Saturday the winner of the 3 November presidential election, has crammed dozens of present and former lobbyists into his presidential transition team, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
According to the business newspaper, analysis of congressional databases of registered lobbyists against the hundreds of people tapped to serve in Biden’s team discovered that at least 40 of them are current or former registered lobbyists, promoting the interests of US corporations and organisations in Washington ranging from environmental causes to the private prison industry.
The list includes five people who are lobbyists at present - or who were registered as such until earlier this year - including representatives from the United Auto Workers, the United Farm Workers Foundation, the Directors Guild of America, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees. These individuals were given waivers to enable them to serve.
At least 35 more ‘retired’ lobbyists are also present, representing entities including the American Federation of Teachers, BP America, the Environmental Defense Fund (an environmental advocacy group with ties to large corporations including McDonald’s and Walmart), as well as an unnamed company which owns private prisons.
Apart from current and former lobbyists, the transition team reportedly also includes ex-employees of major US corporations, including senior executives from tech giants Google, Twitter and a Facebook-linked charity, as well as Amazon, Airbnb, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, KeyBank, LinkedIn, Lyft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Biden made a pledge to curb the “improper influence of lobbyists” in 2019 in the run-up to the Democratic primaries, and vowed to expand on former president Barack Obama’s lobbying ethics-related legislation, including an executive order stating that administration appointees with a lobbying background should not serve in government offices related to the companies or interests for which they are known to have lobbied.
In the course of his political life as a senator, vice-president and candidate for president, Biden has often told voters he would reject campaign cash from lobbyists and special interests, whose influence on politics he has described as “corrosive”. He appeared to backtrack on his promises in September 2019, however, taking campaign donations from large corporations including Google, Lockheed Martin, and several pharmaceutical giants.
Most mainstream US media, Democrat officials and even some Republicans have announced Biden to be the winner of the 2020 election.
President Trump has so far refused to concede, citing alleged voting fraud in battleground states including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania. His opponents have dismissed the claims, and accused him of “undermining democracy.”