The Bankers on Obama’s Team

The latest round of Wall Street muckety-mucks now in charge of regulation.

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GOLDMAN SACHS CEO turned Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson wasn’t the first, or the last, to use the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington. Here’s a short list of Obama officials who got their start in the private sector—many, like Paulson, at “Government Sachs.”

OFFICIAL

CURRENT ROLE IN WASHINGTON

PREVIOUS ROLE ON WALL STREET

Neal Wolin

Deputy secretary of the treasury (Tim Geithner’s No. 2)

Exec at one of the largest insurance and investment firms

Mark Patterson

Treasury secretary’s chief of staff

Goldman Sachs lobbyist

Gene Sperling

Counselor to the treasury secretary

Made nearly $900,000 advising Goldman Sachs

Larry Summers

Obama’s chief economic adviser

Made $5 million as managing director of a hedge fund

Rahm Emanuel

White House chief of staff

Made $16 million as a partner at a Chicago investment bank

Herbert Allison

Assistant secretary of the treasury (oversees TARP)

Longtime exec at Merrill Lynch; headed Fannie Mae

Kim Wallace

Assistant secretary of the treasury for legislative affairs

Managing director at Barclays Capital and Lehman Brothers

Karthik Ramanathan

Acting assistant treasury secretary for financial markets

Foreign exchange dealer at Goldman Sachs

Matthew Kabaker

Deputy assistant secretary of the treasury

Made $5.8 million at the Blackstone Group in 2008-2009

Lewis Alexander

Counselor to the treasury secretary

Chief economist at Citigroup; paid $2.4 million in 2008-2009

Adam Storch

Managing executive of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement

VP of Goldman Sachs’ Business Intelligence Group

Lee Sachs

Counselor to the treasury secretary

Made more than $3 million at a New York hedge fund

Gary Gensler

Chairman of Commodity Futures Trading Commission

18 years at Goldman Sachs, where he made partner

Michael Froman

Deputy assistant to Obama, deputy nat’l security adviser

Managing director of a Citigroup investment arm

This chart is part of Mother Jones’ coverage of the financial crisis, one year later.

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Russian bots are impersonating us. Trump and his allies want to silence us. AI wants to (and does!) steal our content. The list goes on. But with 50 years of experience, we know we were built for this moment: We’re ready to keep diving deep and uncovering the truth, then getting that to you right here, completely accessible and never behind a paywall.

While our work is free to read, watch, and listen to online, it’s incredibly costly to make. Court documents, travel, research: It all adds up. Because we’re a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on reader support to fund our investigations. Will you stand with us in these extraordinary times, as headlines clamour for our attention and disinformation is rampant? We can’t get the truth out without you.

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