When it rains it pours....CIA
Panetta Got $831,500 in ‘08 Speaking, Director Fees
bloomberg.com
Feb. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Leon Panetta, President Barack Obama’s pick to head the Central Intelligence Agency, earned $831,500 in speaking and director’s fees last year from entities that included a public relations firm with lobbying clients, his financial disclosure forms show.
Panetta’s earnings included $251,500 in speaking fees and $580,000 in director’s fees. On top of that, Panetta, a former chief of staff in Bill Clinton’s White House and California congressman, earned $260,000 from consulting and other work.
He received $120,000 in director’s fees from Fleishman- Hillard Inc., a St. Louis, Missouri-based public relations firm that was registered to lobby for about 40 clients last year, according to Panetta’s financial disclosure filed for his CIA nomination and forms Fleishman-Hillard filed with Congress.
Disclosure of Panetta’s earnings comes on the eve of a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing tomorrow on Panetta’s confirmation. The agency has been buffeted by controversies about CIA officials subjecting terror suspects to waterboarding, or simulated drowning, and reports that the agency station chief in Algeria is being investigated for allegedly raping at least two women. The agency has discontinued waterboarding.
More Disclosure
Panetta should disclose whether he advised or had any interaction with Fleishman-Hillard clients with ties to U.S. intelligence operations, said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group.
If he did and is confirmed as CIA director, “he should be recused from those matters” that involved those clients, she said.
Fleishman, on its Web site, says the services provided by its international advisory board, which includes veterans of government such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, provides “counsel to clients -- in person, via video or through calls to decision- makers.”
Even so, “we don’t ask that of them,” said Bill Black, senior partner in Fleishman-Hillard’s Washington office. “I don’t know of any instance he was asked to make a call on behalf of a client,” Black said of Panetta.
Black said Panetta is “just kind of available to us for advisory purposes. He does a lot of kind of internal stuff,” such as serving as a luncheon speaker for regional or national meetings of the firm.
Talk With Clients
Panetta and other members of the advisory board are offered at no extra fee to clients, who may be asked “would it be helpful to hear what Leon Panetta thinks about this?” Black said. The advisers then normally chat with the client by phone.
Panetta, 70, never registered as a lobbyist, according to the House of Representatives’ lobbying disclosure Web site.
Panetta’s income included $28,000 each in speaking fees from the Carlyle Group, the global private-equity firm, Merrill Lynch & Co. and Wachovia Corp. and $125,000 in directors’ fees from BP Corp. North America.
Panetta also should give the details behind his honorarium from Carlyle Group because of the firm’s work with defense and intelligence agencies, Sloan said. “If he’s going to be indebted to Carlyle in any way, that’s troubling,” she said.
Carlyle spokesman Chris Ullman said “Panetta spoke at our annual investor conference, which is unrelated to any of our portfolio companies,” such as Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., an intelligence contractor for the U.S. government. The panel “had to do with our investors who we were entertaining,” he said.
White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said Panetta’s income and investments “have been thoroughly reviewed by the Office of Government Ethics.”
“We anticipate that tomorrow’s hearing will focus on the substance of Mr. Panetta’s views about how to strengthen our intelligence gathering and keep our nation safe,” Vietor said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Timothy J. Burger in Washington at Tburger2@bloomberg.net; Jeff Bliss in Washington jbliss@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: February 4, 2009 19:11 EST |
