The Revolving Door

The term “revolving door” describes a cunning device whereby government employees elected or appointed move from their jobs to private jobs for much higher salaries in industries or lobbying firms that are receiving favors from the very same Congressional representatives. It can be plainly a conflict of interest but is usually ignored. The cycling of jobs is a very important asset of the lobbying industry.

Before getting into the dizzying complexities of lobbying in Washington, let’s look as an example at the case of Dennis Hastert, the former Republican Speaker of the House. It is by now a well known fact revealed by the whistleblower, Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI Turkish-American translator, that Dennis Hastert while Speaker had received tens of thousands of dollars in bribes for favors to the lobbying firm representing Turkey. He received the money in payment for his support of a Turkish oil and gas pipeline that was to run from Baku to the Mediterranean. He did other favors for Turkey and eventually when he left Congress, he joined in June 2008 the lobbying firm of Dickstein and Shapiro that represented Turkey in Congress. Salaries usually jump from 150,000 annually to 100,000 monthly for those who go through the revolving door. Quite an incentive, eh? It’s somewhat mindful of Alice in Wonderland. Except unlike Matrix it is real.

A word about Turkey. Most of us know very little about the role of Turkey. There are many lobbying machines that are on the Turkish payroll and they manage to keep the Turkey influence invisible. However, Turkey plays a central role in areas of terrorism, money laundering, black marketing of arms sales, nuclear secrets and manufacturing and sale of narcotics. It operates inside criminal networks with ostensible legitimate fronts and has links to our military and political machines. Turkey is a major customer of the US for military hardware, technology and weapons. It is very active in criminal networks that transport narcotics from Afghanistan through Central Asia to Turkey. The poppies are processed in Turkey then transported through the Balkans to Europe and America. Money laundering is done through its own banks or banks in Cyprus. High ranking US government employees sell nuclear secrets to Turkey and Pakistan which are then passed on to A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani black marketeer of nuclear secrets. He in turn with the approval of Pakistan government officials helps Iran and North Korea to start their nuclear programs. Pakistan, of course, gets its cut.

There is a link between terrorism and organized crime. Narcotics trafficking and black marketing of arms sales supports terrorism financially. Funds are used to buy arms and train terrorists.

Public service and influence peddling have crossed to such a degree that the revolving door is wide open and proliferating. Political and federal employees leave office for the “insider game” of lobbying and advising private interests how to gain advantage from federal officers. Influence peddling has become a multi-billion dollar industry annually. Today 32 former US Senators and 250 ex-Congressmen now lobby Congress for private interests. Unelected individuals who work for powerful committees in Congress go through the revolving door multiple times to work for lobbying firms. It’s a dizzying merry-go-round in that many cycle back and forth. As a result, House and Senate appropriations committees dole out billions in pork (earmarks).

Let’s look at one other example. William Cohen, former Secty of Defense under Clinton, after leaving the US government, set up his own lobbying company, called the Cohen Group. It represents the largest defense companies in the business, e.g. Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Cohen’s company is an active member of the American Turkish Council (ATC). Lockheed Martin is on the board of ATC and its biggest paying client. The Cohen Group also is very active in India and has just opened in China.

Laws to control lobbyists are full of loopholes so that the Cohen Group is not registered and is able to say that Turkey is not a “direct client”. Cohen claims he is not getting paid directly by the government of Turkey, according to his spin machine. But somehow money does pass between them. Money laundering is very useful. And the corrupt Turks are experts.

Lewis Black, the standup comic, once said: I wake up everyday thinking that it can’t get any worse and it does.


References:

Edmonds, Sibel. justacitizen.com
Wikipedia
Zwicker,Barrie. Towers of Deception. 2006.