Boehner Joins Corporate Lobbying Firm Representing China

Retired Republican House Speaker John Boehner has moved on from Congress and will take his career in a more lucrative direction. He’s joining with Squire Patton Boggs, a powerful lobbying firm that works primarily with the People’s Republican of China and other foreign nations.

The firm said that Boehner will join as a “strategic advisor to clients in the U.S. and abroad, and will focus on global business development,” according to the Intercept.

Squire Patton Boggs also represents several large corporations, including AT&T, Amazon.com, Goldman Sachs & Co., Royal Dutch Shell and the Managed Funds Association, a major hedge fund trade group.

“My role with Squire Patton Boggs will give me the opportunity to engage with leaders in business and government throughout the world and help them work through the challenges they face, as part of a world-class team,” Boehner said in a statement on Sept. 20, according to USA Today.

Though the former Ohio representative is not officially a lobbyist, his job title is “code” for an unofficial one, said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, which monitors campaign finances and where lobbying money goes.

“This is someone who can act as rainmaker — use their name recognition, their contacts, their high-level status and leverage them on behalf of a paying client,” Krumholz told USA Today.

Neither Boehner nor Squire Patton Boggs revealed his agreed-upon salary, although Krumholz said that his position is likely a “very lucrative” one.

He will bring two of his longtime political aides, John Criscuolo and Amy Lozupone, with him to the lobbying firm. They’ll will be joining his former deputy chief of staff, Dave Schnittger, and a former policy adviser, Natasha Hammond, who are already employed there.

“I left the private sector and got into public service decades ago because I wanted to help remove government barriers to economic growth and job creation, and that’s still the mission that drives me,” Boehner said in a statement, according to CNN.

Boehner, who was known in Washington for his close relationships with corporate interests, is also joining the board of Reynolds American, the parent company of tobacco brands such as Camel and Newport cigarettes.

Sources: The Intercept, USA Today, CNN / Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr