Intelligence nominee no stranger to lobbying world
Dan Coats has spent time as lawmaker and lobbyist
WASHINGTON — Former Sen. Dan Coats, in line to be national intelligence director, has swung back and forth between government service and lobbying, the type of Washington career that President-elect Donald Trump has mocked.
The Indiana Republican, 73, has made four spins through the capital’s revolving door and become wealthy. Since the early 1980s, Coats either has served in government or earned money as a lobbyist and board director. His most recently available Senate financial disclosure, from 2014, shows he had a net worth of more than $12 million.
In and out of government, Coats dealt with intelligence, which he would oversee for the Trump administration if confirmed by the Senate. Announcing his selection on Saturday, Trump cited Coats’ “deep subject matter expertise and sound judgment” and government service but did not mention his lobbying.
When Coats first left the Senate in 1999, he abided by the legally required yearlong cooling off period before joining a firm that lobbied his former colleagues on behalf of foreign clients.
He resumed government service in 2001 as ambassador to Germany under President George W. Bush. In 2005, Coats returned to the United States, and to the influence industry, as a lobbyist on behalf of some of the country’s biggest companies, including defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. Five years later, he successfully ran for his old Senate seat.
“This is exactly how people outside of Washington think Washington works,” said Meredith McGehee, a chief at the government watchdog group Issue One. “It’s the internecine nature of policymakers getting rich off the people they once regulated. And then to come back into the government — it can be a tough task for any person to basically now bite the hand that fed you.”
Trump aides stressed that Trump’s lobbying policies are foward-looking. Spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump was hiring the most qualified people for his administration.
Coats “recognizes the opportunity to serve outweighs any possibility of personal gain,” Spicer said.
If confirmed, Coats would head an agency created after the Sept. 11 attacks to improve coordination among U.S. spy and law enforcement agencies.
Coats isn’t the only one in Trump’s still-forming administration to work on both sides of the government power structure.
Robert Lighthizer, picked to be U.S. trade representative, spent years as a registered lobbyist, representing steel companies, among others, as recently as 2012. He joined the law firm Skadden in 1998, after having been at the trade office for two years during the Reagan administration.
Rick Perry, Trump’s choice as energy secretary, registered in Texas as a lobbyist for the country’s largest private dental insurance company a little over a year after leaving office as the state’s longtime governor.
When Trump talked on the campaign trail about “draining the swamp” of Washington — a catchphrase that remains popular at his rallies — he specifically denounced the revolving door between Capitol Hill and K Street, the hub of lobbying that attracts many ex-lawmakers.
“They’re making a fortune,” Trump said at an Oct. 20 campaign rally in Delaware, Ohio. “Not going to happen. That’s why they make all these sweetheart deals.”
Coats, for example, earned more than $600,000 in his final year at the Washington law and government relations firm King & Spaulding.