During the Chas Freeman controversy I was confused about whether Freeman's connections to Saudi Arabia were a problem. I decided not; because Hillary Clinton has the same connections, also because the Saudis have, as Freeman said, demonstrated real leadership on the Israel/Palestine problem.
I reached out to a smart friend about Where do we draw the line on these associations for someone coming into government? The friend made these points:
The conceptual point is whether there is something in any public servant’s background that legitimately might affect their judgment while in office, because there was a clear conflict of interest. So if Freeman is currently getting paid by a Chinese oil company to serve on their board (which is harmless by itself; I’ll bet there are lots of people in the Obama administration who’ve served on corporate boards, including foreign corporations), then he should sever that tie. The fact that a Saudi Prince (not the government itself) gave money to Middle East Policy Council isn’t a problem, because MEPC also got money from others and because Freeman’s own personal circumstances weren’t significantly altered. Even if he’d been a paid consultant for the Saudis themselves, and earning a lucrative salary, why do we think that would disqualify him provided he’s not doing it anymore? Suppose he had been Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School, and while serving as Dean he had raised money for a professorship from the same Saudi prince. Would that disqualify him? Surely not. William Lynn, who is now in a top job at the Pentagon, was a paid lobbyist for a defense contractor, and
Lawrence Summers was working part-time with a financial investment firm before he took off to head up the National Economic Council. And now they are both in jobs where their decisions could easily affect how well their former employers do.
The tricky part is when there’s no current “conflict of interest” (i.e., the person in question has no material stake that would be affected by their decisions), but the past connections might incline them to see things a particular way. Do we think Summers would be inclined to authorize a policy that he had reason to believe would hurt his old buddies at D. E. Shaw? Even here it’s not clear it should disqualify anyone, because you would end up disqualifying almost anyone who has any sort of tie (it would clearly knock out Dennis Ross, for example), and I don’t think you could staff a government at all if you did.
