REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. (AP) – President-elect Joe Biden’s choice to become treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, has amassed more than $ 7 million in speaking fees from major financial companies and tech giants, including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Google, according to the disclosure forms submitted as part of its nomination.
Yellen’s was one of three financial disclosures filed by Biden transition officials and made public by the Office of Government Ethics on Thursday. In a separate filing, Yellen listed companies and banks for which she had received speaking fees and said she intended to “obtain written consent” from ethics officers to “personally and substantially participate” in matters involving them.
Yellen was chairman of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018. Her tenure was not renewed by President Donald Trump. In 2019 and 2020 she took on the speaking fees.
Her choice by Biden to lead the Treasury Department has been applauded by progressive Democrats, who support Yellen’s work as a labor economist who has long prioritized combating economic inequality. Since her appointment was announced, Yellen has pledged to work to combat systemic racism and climate change.
But receiving steep payments from Wall Street bankers and other powerful corporations could become a problem as her nomination works its way through a tightly divided Senate. Hillary Clinton faced criticism from the left wing of the Democratic Party when she ran for president in 2016 for receiving lucrative speaking fees from Wall Street companies.
A transition spokesman for Biden said Friday that since leaving the Fed, Yellen has “spoken at economic conferences, universities and with business groups and financial institutions about her experiences and views on what we can do as a country to build a stronger economy. build and our competitiveness. He added that “this is not someone who takes blows when it comes to bad actors or bad behavior.”
Also on Thursday, disclosure forms were released of Biden’s choice to become Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, who outlined his work at a consulting firm he co-founded, WestExec Advisors, LLC. They reveal that Blinken paid more than $ 1.1 million and entered into an agreement, negotiated in October, to sell his equity stake in the company, advising clients such as Bank of America and Facebook.
Avril Haines, Biden’s choice to become National Intelligence Director, announced that he was a consultant with WestExec Advisors and raised approximately $ 55,000 in fees between October 2017 and last summer. In a separate letter to ethics officials, Haines pledged to recuperate herself for a year in issues involving WestExec, as well as her other past employers, including Columbia University, Syracuse University, and the Brookings Institution think tank.
Some advocacy groups began warning just after election day that Biden, who was a Senator from Delaware for 36 years and a vice president for two terms, could rely too heavily on officials with strong ties to past Democratic governments. Many of them have left public sector posts for private sector jobs and are now trying to return to government, voicing concerns about the ‘revolving door’ between policy and business and financial influence.
However, Biden has largely thrown off such concerns and says he is not afraid to rely on advisers with extensive government experience. He has pledged to put together a cabinet well versed in the workings of government and full of members from across the racial and ideological spectrum who look like the diverse country they will represent.
Biden’s transition team says it expects to announce more cabinet choices next week, ahead of inauguration day on Jan. 20. by federal prosecutors investigating the finances of Biden’s son Hunter.