Thread by @JoshuaSteinman

As @EzraACohen pointed out (tweet below), the “goodbye tours” are underway.

But what does that mean?

Usually when a presidential administration is “over” (defacto or dejure), the senior folks will run blow-out trips around the world.

The purpose is three-fold:

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Ezra pointed this out, but why do “goodbye tours?”

1) say goodbye to counterparts
2) set themselves up for cushy post-admin jobs (dinners with executives, at which the ‘well, what will you do next’ question is met with winks and nods)
3) boondoggle tourism

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These tours are part of the Washington “revolving door”.

I’ve talked about those, below:

But cabinet-secretary revolving doors are SLIGHTLY different.

Those often involve board seats, book deals, TV gigs, consulting agreements ($100k/mo!)

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For what you’re seeing here — foreign revolving doors — it’s more complicated.

Look for these folks to go to places like “German Marshall Fund” or other well-endowed think tanks. They’ll take non-resident fellowships, “Professor of Practice” gigs at say the LSE, & more.

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For the foreign stuff it’s not exactly FARA work (they won’t explicitly be lobbying on behalf of foreign governments), it’s a “thank you for the billions in unaccounted for U.S. Tax Dollars,” and the like.

Maybe they’ll make 500k a year on it, likely much less.

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In the end, it all comes down to one of the most depressing revelations I had during my time at the White House:

That senior government officials sell out all the time, and the price for which they do is shockingly low.

I wish we could stop the practice.

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