Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
WestExec founder Tony Blinken is likely to hold an influential position in the Biden administration.
When Biden’s key foreign-policy advisers started a consultancy serving the corporate world and defense contractors, they already had their eye on returning to government. They were so sure they’d be back in the White House that they even put it in their lease.
WestExec Advisors—a strategic consultancy founded by senior Obama national-security officials Michèle Flournoy and Tony Blinken—opened an office in downtown D.C., three blocks from the White House. But their lease had an unusual clause. It could be terminated without penalty if, in the event of a new president in 2020, the firm’s principals landed jobs in the administration.
“Clauses like that are exceptionally unique,” the real estate broker that arranged the terms for WestExec told me. “Having language related to terminating in the event there’s a certain administration in place and you have principals that might go into it—that’s a perfect example of strategic planning up front.”
WestExec’s founders are likely to hold influential positions in the Biden presidency. Blinken has been pitched as national-security adviser, and Flournoy as secretary of defense.
Though WestExec’s senior leadership had denied to me this summer that their firm was a holding pen for the Biden administration-in-waiting, the peculiar clause in their lease suggests that they had long set their sights on roles in the next Democratic administration.
Blinken and Flournoy launched WestExec in 2017. They appealed to clients with their recent experience in the Obama administration—and the potential that they would be senior figures in the next Democratic presidency. Their tagline was “from the situation room to the board room,” and their website featured photos of their lead consultants in the halls of power alongside powerful figures, like Obama himself. Blinken had been close to Biden for decades and a senior State Department official, and Flournoy had most recently served as a top official in the Defense Department.
WestExec has declined to share its client list, but the Prospect confirmed in July that they have worked for a major defense contractor, Google billionaire Eric Schmidt’s philanthropy, and an Israeli high-tech surveillance company.
Blinken and Flournoy’s networks led them to lucrative clients, and they were intimately involved in offering them guidance. “Tony is on client calls, Michèle is on client calls,” a WestExec staffer told me this summer. As a boutique firm, WestExec tailored its client list—ensuring they do no lobbying and don’t represent any foreign governments—so that their leadership would be palatable for Senate confirmation hearings. Still, progressives have criticized the firm and Blinken’s role in the presidential campaign. “We ask you not to rely on foreign policy advice from those who may have a conflict of interest as a result of their relationships and lobbying on behalf of merchants selling weapons and surveillance technology,” 275 Democratic National Convention delegates wrote in a letter to Biden this summer.
After facing questions from the Prospect, Blinken took a leave of absence from WestExec and its related private equity firm in August. Flournoy continues to be managing partner.
As Biden prepares to take over the U.S. government, WestExec has provided even more personnel. Senior advisers to President-elect Biden include the firm’s Jen Psaki and Avril Haines. During the campaign, Haines served on the leadership board of the transition and is poised to take on a senior national-security posting in the administration. Yesterday, Biden’s presidential transition appointed teams to oversee each government agency, which included WestExec consultants Cristina Killingsworth on the Office of Management of Budget and Ely Ratner working on the Defense landing team. Lisa Monaco of the firm is favored to be director of national intelligence.
Calls to Flournoy and WestExec staffers were not returned. Spokespersons for JPMorgan Chase, the owner of the Bowen Building on McPherson Square in Washington where their office sits, and JBG Smith, the real estate management company, could not be reached.
Though their office suite isn’t yet on the market, the leaders of WestExec Advisors now have options. “It’s been really important for the organization not to let real estate drive their decision but to let their strategic initiatives drive their real estate,” the broker told me. “If you have ties to either political party and held high offices in the past—or high enough offices that it’s conceivable you’d go back in—you realistically have to establish a risk-mitigation strategy.”
No surprise that leading Washington consultants would be savvy enough to mitigate their own risk, just in time to return to prominent roles in the administration.
