Tommy Thompson Doesn’t Know Who He Works For
Former Bush Official Turned D.C. Insider is Unsure Who Pays Him
MADISON – Amid reports that Republican Party leaders in Washington continue to pressure him to challenge Terrence Wall and Dave Westlake in the GOP primary for U.S. Senate, Tommy Thompson has spent the last five years making millions of dollars working on behalf of wealthy D.C. and out-of-state special interests including health insurance and pharmaceutical companies and the finance industry.
In fact, Thompson is so intertwined with D.C. special interests, he can’t even keep track of them all.
Below is his exchange with reporters on February 11, 2010:
Q: How many boards and companies are you actually involved with? Dozens?
Tommy: See that’s sort of a hard thing for me to say, because a lot of them I do it through the law firm. So I may be on, I may be on a board, or an advisory committee that is actually a law client of the firm. So that’s how, that’s how I do it. There’s more than a dozen.
Q: More than a dozen of which you are actually on the board of directors?
Tommy: No. Associated with.
“I’m not sure what’s worse, John McCain not knowing how many houses he had or Tommy not knowing how many corporate interests he is working for,” said Mike Tate, Chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, “What is important is that voters know where Tommy’s loyalties really are: with the biggest DC lobbyists whose lives are made more difficult by having Russ Feingold in office.”
In an effort to help Thompson, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin has compiled the following, from public reports only, to help the former Bush Cabinet official turned DC lobbyist figure out where his allegiance lies:
Tommy Thompson Employment
Partner, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer Feld, a Washington, D.C. based lobbying and law firm. Thompson’s clients include health care companies and those doing business in the public sector.
Independent senior adviser, Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, associated with the Deloitte & Touche accounting firm. Deloitte & Touche has received $836 million in federal contracts since 2000, including more than $120 million in contracts from HHS.
Independent Monitor, National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA)
Special adviser, Alfacell Corp., Somerset, N.J., a drug company.
Chairman, AGA Medical Corporation, Plymouth, MN.
Chairman, Care View Communications, Lewisville, Texas
President, Logistics Health Inc., La Crosse.
Director, Global Renewal LLC of Whitewater.
Senior adviser, McKinley Reserve, Hilbert, an investment firm specializing in acquiring assets, including real estate, closely held stock and publicly traded securities.
Board, Applied Digital Solutions, creator of VeriChip, a glass-encapsulated RFID chip that can be injected into human flesh for various database-driven identification purposes.
Board, Medco Health Solutions, Inc., NJ.
Board, Peak Ridge Capital AgTech Fund, Boston, MA
Board, Spectrascience Inc., San Diego, CA.
Board, PURE Bioscience, El Cajon, CA.
Board, HealthMarkets, Inc., North Richland Hills, TX.
Board, Organ Transport Systems, Inc., Frisco, TX
Board, Centene Corp., Clayton, MO.
Board, C.R. Bard Inc., Murray Hill, NJ.
Board, Picis, Inc.,Wakefield, Mass.
Board, Catalina Health Resource, Inc, St. Louis, MO.
Board, Voyager Pharmaceutical Corp., Raleigh, N.C
Board, MDVIP, Inc., a Boca Raton, FL.
Board, ProCure Treatment Centers, Inc., Bloomington, IN.
Board, Harmony Information Systems, Inc, Reston, Va.
Board, XShares Advisers LLC, New York City.
Board, Constella Group, LLC, Durham, N.C.
Board, Armada Media Corporation, Fond du Lac.
Board, United Therapeutics Corp., Silver Spring, MD.
