Jake Siewert was VP for "public strategy" at Alcoa, a supporter and beneficiary of President Obama's proposed climate and fuel-economy policies, when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner hired him up as a "counselor" in 2009. Siewert, an alumnus of the Clinton White House, left Treasury last summer, and today we learn that he is headed to Goldman Sachs to be "managing director and head of global corporate communications."
This is yet another fact contradicting Obama's rhetoric about stopping the revolving door and battling Wall Street, and both the Treasury Department and Goldman Sachs are key hubsof Obama's revolving-door map.
First, let's recount the Geithner deputies cashing out. Damon Munchus, a Fannie Mae alumnus, was Geithner's liaison to Capitol Hill. In early 2010, Munchus cashed out to the Cypress Group, a self-described "financial services lobbying and consulting firm." Munchus's lobbying clients since leaving Treasury include the hedge fund lobb Managed Funds Association, bailed-out megabank Citigroup, and Price Waterhouse Cooper.
Jim Millstein was a bailout specialist at Treasury until he started his own financial consultancy. Now Siewert goes to Goldman.
Goldman also picked up Obama's General Counsel, Greg Craig.
Other megabanks have scooped up top Obama aides (Peter Orszag to Citi, for one), and more than a dozen Goldman alumni have worked in the Obama administration, notably Geithner's chief of staff Mark Patterson, who was a lobbyist for Goldman in 2008.
Yet Obama and his proxies continue to maintain that are fighting Wall Street and stopping the revolving door.
