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WOAHH…im impressed
Alex Wong/Reuters
Tom Daschle, the former South Dakota senator, was nominated by President Barack Obama to be secretary of health and human services. He withdrew as the nominee on Feb. 3, 2009, because he had failed to pay more than $128,000 in taxes.
The taxes had been owed in part because of his free use of a car and driver that had been provided to him by a prominent businessman and Democratic fund-raiser. Mr. Daschle, concluding that he owed the taxes, filed amended returns and paid more than $140,000 in back taxes and interest on Jan. 2, 2009.
The car and driver were provided by Leo Hindery Jr., a media and telecommunications executive who had been chairman of YES, the New York Yankees regional sports network. In 2005, Mr. Hindery founded a private equity firm known as InterMedia Advisors. Mr. Daschle was chairman of InterMedia’s advisory board.
Mr. Daschle served in Congress from South Dakota for 26 years, including 10 years as Democratic leader in the Senate. As leader when the Democrats were in the minority and the majority, Mr. Daschle was known for his soft-spoken and reassuring style.
Mr. Daschle, a former Air Force officer, devoted much of his adult life to Congress. He was 30 when he was elected to the House in 1978, after serving as an aide to Senator James Abourezk, Democrat of South Dakota.
Mr. Daschle left the Senate after losing a brutal re-election bid to John Thune, a Republican congressman, in 2004, the year Mr. Obama was elected to the Senate, so Mr. Daschle and Mr. Obama did not overlap as lawmakers. But Mr. Daschle left office with a strong reputation as a scholar of Senate dynamics, and Mr. Obama eagerly welcomed his advice, friends say.
But Mr. Daschle’s post-Senate career moves caused complications. In an era when lobbyists are not held in favor — in part because of Mr. Obama’s criticisms — Mr. Daschle has worked since leaving the Senate as a public policy advisor for a K Street law firm, Alston & Bird. Although not a registered lobbyist, he provided “strategic advice” to commercial clients in the fields of health care, energy, telecommunications and taxes, according to public documents. His wife, Linda Hall Daschle, is registered, and she is regarded as one of the most influential professional lobbyists in the capital.
As a politician, Mr. Daschle often struck a populist note, but his financial disclosure report shows that in the last two years, he received $2.1 million from Alston & Bird; $2 million in consulting fees from the private equity firm run by Mr. Hindery; and at least $220,000 for speeches to health care, pharmaceutical and insurance companies. He also received nearly $100,000 from health-related companies affected by federal regulation.
Mr. Daschle was born on Dec. 9, 1947, in Aberdeen, S.D., and has three children from his first marriage.
Eric H. Holder Jr., former deputy attorney general under Janet Reno in the Clinton administration, is the attorney general in Barack Obama’s administration.
Mr. Holder has a history of being sponsored for prominent positions by presidents of both parties. He was appointed a United States attorney and then deputy attorney general by President Clinton. For the previous five years, he served as a judge on the District of Columbia Superior Court, a post to which he was nominated by President Ronald Reagan.
Mr. Holder worked for 12 years with the Justice Department’s Public Integrity section, prosecuting misconduct by state officials, judges, F.B.I. agents and a Federal prosecutor. In recent years, he has worked as a partner at Covington & Burling, representing big-name clients like the National Football League, Chiquita Brands International and Merck.
Mr. Holder, as deputy attorney general, did not play a direct role in President Bill Clinton’s controversial pardon of Marc Rich, the fugitive financier, who in 1983 fled to Switzerland rather than face tax evasion charges. But when queried about his view of the pardon, Mr. Holder told the White House he was “neutral, leaning towards favorable.” The comment was later seized on by Democrats to defend the pardon and by Republicans to blast Mr. Holder for endorsing what became the most heavily criticized pardon of Mr. Clinton’s presidency, in part because it turned out that Mr. Rich’s former wife, Denise Rich, donated large amounts of money to Mr. Clinton’s presidential library.
Mr. Holder is close to Valerie Jarrett, an Obama confidant and co-chairwoman of the Obama transition team. During the campaign, Mr. Holder was part of a vice-presidential advisory team that helped pick Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware as Mr. Obama’s running mate.
Born Jan. 21, 1951, in the Bronx and raised in New York City, Mr. Holder attended public schools and graduated from Columbia University and Columbia Law School.
http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/h/eric_h_holder_jr/index.html
Timothy F. Geithner became the ninth president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on November 17, 2003. In that capacity, he serves as the vice chairman and a permanent member of the Federal Open Market Committee, the group responsible for formulating the nation’s monetary policy. President Obama nominated Mr. Geithner to be the 75th Secretary of the Treasury and the U.S. Senate confirmed him to the position on January 26, 2009.
Mr. Geithner joined the Department of Treasury in 1988 and worked in three administrations for five Secretaries of the Treasury in a variety of positions. He served as Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs from 1999 to 2001 under Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers.
He was director of the Policy Development and Review Department at the International Monetary Fund from 2001 until 2003. Before joining the Treasury, Mr. Geithner worked for Kissinger Associates, Inc.
Mr. Geithner graduated from Dartmouth College with a bachelor’s degree in government and Asian studies in 1983 and from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies with a master’s in International Economics and East Asian Studies in 1985. He has studied Japanese and Chinese and has lived in East Africa, India, Thailand, China, and Japan.
Mr. Geithner serves as chairman of the G-10’s Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems of the Bank for International Settlements. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Group of Thirty.
VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN
Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., was born November 20, 1942, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the first of four siblings. In 1953, the Biden family moved from Pennsylvania to Claymont, Delaware. He graduated from the University of Delaware and Syracuse Law School and served on the New Castle County Council. Then, at age 29, he became one of the youngest people ever elected to the United States Senate.
Just weeks after the election, tragedy struck the Biden family, when Biden’s wife, Neilia, and their 1-year old daughter, Naomi, were killed and their two young sons critically injured in an auto accident. Biden was sworn in at his sons’ hospital bedside and began commuting to Washington every day by train, a practice he maintained throughout his career in the Senate.
In 1977, Biden married Jill Jacobs. Jill Biden, who holds a Ph.D. in Education, has been an educator for over two decades in Delaware’s schools. Vice President Biden has three children: Beau, Hunter, and Ashley. Beau serves as Delaware’s Attorney General and is currently deployed to Iraq as a Captain in the 261st Signal Brigade of the Delaware National Guard. Ashley is a social worker and Hunter is an attorney. Vice President Biden has five grandchildren: Naomi, Finnegan, Roberta Mabel (“Maisy”), Natalie, and Robert Hunter.
As a Senator from Delaware for 36 years, Biden has been a leader on some of our nation’s most important domestic and international challenges. As Chairman or Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee for 17 years, Biden was widely recognized for his work on criminal justice issues including the landmark 1994 Crime Bill and the Violence Against Women Act. As Chairman or Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee since 1997, Biden played a pivotal role in shaping U.S. foreign policy. He has been at the forefront of issues and legislation related to terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, post-Cold War Europe, the Middle East, and Southwest Asia.
