Alex Constantine - January 1, 2015
Sources: Republic Report, Roll Call, New York Times
For Republicans, hiring lobbyists to handle the day-to-day goings on of Congress seems to have become a normal occurrence these days, so Academi lobbyist Jeff Shockey being named Staff Director of the House Intelligence Committee may not have been particularly surprising if not for one important detail.
Academi, a military defense contractor, has been around since 1997. Before 2011 they were known as Xe Services, but prior to that they went by a much more noticeable name – Blackwater.
The company had its share of controversy in the Blackwater era, but one of the more notable instances was a House Intelligence Committee investigation involving secret contracts that they signed with the Central Intelligence Agency for their participation in covert raids in Iraq and Afghanistan. Shockey’s new job, according to the Republic Report, will partly be to “oversee the agencies that do business with his former employer.”
As Staff Director of the committee, Shockey will also work with other companies who do business with government agencies, with Koch Industries, General Dynamics and Boeing being a notable few.
Roll Call reported that this isn’t the first time Shockey has left his lobbyist job for a House Committee position. For six years he served as the deputy staff director for the House Appropriations Committee, where he “managed the committee’s professional staff and oversaw the twelve annual appropriations bills, supplemental appropriations bills and continuing resolutions.”
From: The Intercept
House Intelligence Committee top staffer lobbied for intelligence contractors like Boeing
By Lee Fang
April 9 2015
... In January, Jeffrey Shockey became the most powerful staffer on the House Intelligence Committee after Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., named him staff director, the highest ranking staff assignment. Shockey has gone in and out of lobbying and congressional work for over two decades. As a staffer for Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., back in 1996, he was one of several staffers to vacation in the Northern Mariana Islands on a trip sponsored by Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist later convicted on corruption charges, who was then representing the Mariana government in a bid to downplay concerns over labor conditions on the island’s factories, which included allegations of sweatshop-like environments and forced abortions. Shockey later became a lobbyist himself, helping his military industry clients win over $150 million in earmarks from Lewis’s appropriations committee, an arrangement that led to a federal investigation. In recent years, Shockey launched his own lobbying firm, and a partnership with former General Stanley McChrystal, to represent a number of companies that work on behalf of the military and in some cases intelligence agencies like the NSA, including Academi (the firm formerly known as Blackwater), Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, United Launch Technologies and United Launch Alliance. Disclosures show Shockey earned over $1.2 million last year and is set to receive over $1.1 million in three installments as a payout for leaving his firm to become a public servant. ...
https://theintercept.com/2015/04/09/lobbyists-for-spies-appointed-to-oversee-spying/