Consulting Firm Working with Both Parties
A small consulting firm out of Washington, D.C. called Beacon Global Strategies is working with several candidates on foreign policy, including Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz.
The bipartisan firm was founded in 2013 by former senior officials from the State Department, Department of Defense, and Central Intelligence Agency, and quickly had more than a dozen clients, primarily defense contractors, according to Defense News.
Philippe Reines and Andrew Shapiro, both considered part of Clinton’s inner circle of foreign policy advisers, are founders of the firm. Reines served as a longtime spokesperson for Clinton and Shapiro served as her assistant secretary of state for military affairs.
The Beacon Global Strategies advisory board, which includes retired Adm. James Stavridis and CNN contributor Fran Townsend, was established to “provide guidance to the BGS team on the full range of the firm’s activities, from particular projects to larger strategic initiatives,” the firm announced in 2013.
Though the firm says it does not lobby and is not registered as a lobbying firm, lack of registration is becoming increasingly meaningless in Washington as thousands of lobbyists have simply deregistered while continuing to peddle influence on behalf of clients. Under federal lobbying law, lobby registration is only required under very narrow guidelines that are rarely enforced.
Beacon Global Strategies’ seed funding came from Claude Fontheim, a former Clinton adviser who now serves as a lobbyist to the U.S.-China Exchange Foundation, a nonprofit reportedly used by Chinese government officials and Hong Kong tycoons to shape American policy toward China.
While conspiracy theorists may have a more sinister take on one firm advising so many of the leading candidates, it is at least of concern that so many of the prominent players are getting intelligence from the same source. That may simply be because the firm is very good at what it does, and the crux is what each individual does with the information.
It is also interesting that almost to a person, the candidates are busy denigrating Wall Street and the influence of money in the election, all of which plays well with public animosity towards big banks and financial players. The reality is that every politician in the race today, including anti-business Bernie Sanders, is receiving some support from the financial industry.
The question is, how much does that support influence the individual politician in decision making once they have taken office?
Source: the intercept.com
No wonder Cruz and Rubio is lagging