REVEALED: Google billionaire Eric Schmidt has PAID the salaries of staff inside Biden's science office and has been quietly lobbying on policy since the Obama administration

By Morgan Phillips - @DailyMail

28 March 2022

• Schmidt, who stepped down in his role at Google's parent company Alphabet in 2020, now serves on the board of numerous tech companies

• Schmidt even indirectly paid the salaries of OTSP employeesFormer OTSP general counsel Rachel Wallace repeatedly raised concerns over Schmidt's influence

•  She believes her concerns were the source of the wrath she faced from OTSP's former head Eric Lander, who stepped down recently for bullying 

• Lander and Schmidt are close associates

• More than a dozen in the 140-person White House office are current or former employees of Schmidt

Google's former CEO Eric Schmidt channeled money into the White House science office through his foundation, according to a report. 

Schmidt, who stepped down in his role at Google's parent company Alphabet in 2020, now serves on the board of numerous tech companies, including some focused on artificial intelligence (AI). The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OTSP) helps formulate AI policy and steer funding toward the technology. 

Former OTSP general counsel Rachel Wallace repeatedly raised concerns over Schmidt's influence, which she believes was the source of the wrath she faced from the OTSP's former head Eric Lander, who stepped down recently for bullying women in the office. Lander and Schmidt are close associates. 

Wallace filed a whistleblower complaint and is now being represented by the Government Accountability Office.  

Schmidt even indirectly paid the salaries of OTSP employees, according to Politico. Schmidt's charity arm, Schmidt Futures, paid the salaries of two science office employees while they worked as unpaid consultants. For six weeks, the foundation paid the salary of current chief of staff, Marc Aidinoff, who is now one of the most senior officials in the shakeup after Lander's resignation. 

Former OTSP official Tom Kalil, chief innovation officer at Schmidt Futures, also remained on the charity's payroll for four months while he was advising the OTSP as an unpaid consultant. He left the office after ethics complaints. 

More than a dozen in the 140-person White House office are current or former employees of Schmidt, according to Politico. 

'It's telling that the downfall of the head of OSTP came not from the apparent ethics violations but from allegedly mistreating those who attempted to blow the whistle. The revolving door between government service and powerful private interests is one reason the American public’s trust in its government is at an all time low. But it looks as though, rather than reform, OSTP may have made it worse by creating a situation in which they replaced the revolving door with a breezeway, eliminating structural barriers between the two,' Michael Chamberlain, director at government ethics group Protect the People's Trust, told DailyMail.com. 

Wallace said that the science office's efforts to arrange for Schmidt Futures to pay the salaries of Landers' staff prompted 'significant' ethics concerns, given that Schmidt's financial interests overlapped with the OTSP's responsibilities, according to internal emails shown to Politico. 

Over the past year, not only Wallace but numerous others on the OTSP's legal team flagged potential conflicts of interests with Schmidt and Schmidt Futures. 

'I and others on the legal team had been noticing a large number of staff with financial connections to Schmidt Futures and were increasingly concerned about the influence this organization was able to have through these individuals,' Wallace said. 

Some of Schmidt's financial influence came in the form of Schmidt Futures fellowships, where the foundation would pay for travel and accommodation of OTSP employees going to science conferences. Last summer, two employees withdrew from the fellowships at the advisement of the OTSP legal team. 

Two other OTSP officials continued working part-time at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, a biotech facility formerly led by Lander where Schmidt serves on the board. Both have since left OTSP. Two others had their salaries paid by the Federation of American Scientists, that Schmidt pays into. 

Schmidt, who is worth an estimated $23 billion, and his wife Wendy announced a $150 million gift to the Broad Institute just after Lander was nominated to head OTSP.  

Schmidt has long tried to sink his teeth into federal science policy. The billionaire former tech CEO hit the campaign trail for President Obama in 2008 but underscored that he was 'doing this personally' since Google was 'officially neutral.' 

Throughout the Obama administration, Google representatives attended White House meetings more than once a week, according to an analysis by The Intercept and the Campaign for Accountability. 

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