Bipartisan Senators Criticize Lloyd Austin’s Role After Leaving Pentagon

Former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is under renewed scrutiny for founding a Washington, DC, consulting firm just months after stepping down from his post in the Biden administration. Republican and Democrat lawmakers say the move betrays public trust and raises serious ethical and national security concerns.

In a bipartisan letter to Austin, Senators Rick Scott (R-FL) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) criticized his recent decision to launch Clarion Strategies, a “strategic advisory firm” composed of top defense and national security officials from the Biden administration. The lawmakers accused him of “cashing in on your public service.”

Clarion Strategies markets itself as being “led by a distinguished team — including a former Secretary of Defense…[that] bring[s] unmatched expertise in defense, diplomacy, and international security.” Austin’s own biography on the firm’s site touts how he “led the Pentagon through unprecedented modernization and maturation… created pathways to drive private capital to national security priorities… [and] draw[s] on more than 40 years in the U.S. Army.”

Scott and Warren wrote that Austin broke a public pledge he made during his 2021 confirmation hearing, when he told Sen. Warren, “If I’m privileged enough to be confirmed, I can pledge to you that I’ll be mindful, not only of the legal requirements that govern my conduct but also of the appearances to ensure that the public has no reason to question my impartiality.”

Austin also stated: “I have no intent to be a lobbyist,” adding that public service “is and will remain a public trust.”

Yet, as the senators now point out, “Finding a loophole to serve as an ‘adviser’ rather than a registered lobbyist undermines the very purpose of the promise that you made to the American people.”