Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, asked to help solve the nation's financial crisis, includes a union executive who took the Fifth in a federal probe, a billionaire whose failed bank pioneered the subprime mortgage market, and deep-pocket donors who gave or gathered nearly $1.2 million for the president's campaign.
In all, 11 of the 16 board members donated or raised money for Democrats in the last election, according to a Washington Times review of campaign finance records. They include the president and chief operating officer of the American arm of UBS Investment Bank, the Swiss-based bank now at the center of a widening tax evasion probe by the Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service.
The board is headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, whose only political contribution last year was $2,300 to Mr. Obama.
"It is distressing to see the president turning to his heavy finance hitters as consultants," said Craig Holman, legislative director for Public Citizen, a nonpartisan watchdog group that tracks political fundraising and its influence on government policy.
One board member, Richard L. Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, surfaced during a Clinton-era federal investigation into a money-laundering scheme involving the Democratic Party and Teamster's President Ron Carey. Court documents and a congressional report claimed that Mr. Trumka helped divert $150,000 in union funds to Mr. Carey's 1996 re-election campaign through a liberal consumer-advocacy group known as Citizen Action.
Blog Smith is inspired by the myth of Hephaestus in the creation of blacksmith-like, forged materials: ideas. This blog analyzes topics that interest me: IT, politics, technology, history, education, music, and the history of religions.