June 06, 2019
Four months after leaving the Trump Administration, General Kelly joined the board of Caliburn International; appears to be receiving $100,000 or more in annual compensation; Warren, Jayapal have introduced sweeping ethics legislation to shut the revolving door and keep high-level government officials from cashing in on their public service
Senator Warren, Representative Jayapal Investigate Former White House Chief of Staff General John Kelly's "Cynical" and "Unethical" Decision to Join the Board of Directors of Federal Contractor Running the Nation's Largest Detention Center for Migrant Children
Four months after leaving the Trump Administration, General Kelly joined the board of Caliburn International; appears to be receiving $100,000 or more in annual compensation; Warren, Jayapal have introduced sweeping ethics legislation to shut the revolving door and keep high-level government officials from cashing in on their public service
Washington, DC - United States Senator Elizabeth
Warren (D-Mass.) and Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) today sent a
letter to Caliburn International Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jim Van Dusen
expressing concerns and posing questions about the appointment of former White
House Chief of Staff and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary
General John Kelly to the company's board of directors.
As DHS Secretary and then White House Chief of Staff, Kelly advocated for the Trump Administration's
"zero-tolerance" immigration policy that led to forcibly separating
thousands of migrant children from their parents, holding those children in
cages, and putting them at increased risk of "severe psychological distress." Six migrant children have died while in, or soon after
being released from, federal custody in the last year.
Just four months after his departure from the Trump Administration, General
Kelly has reportedly joined the Board of Directors of Caliburn
International, the parent company of Comprehensive Health Services, Inc.
(CHSi), which runs both the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied
Children in Florida, which is expanding to hold 3,200 beds for unaccompanied
children, as well as three more facilities in Texas. Reports indicate that
CHSi could receive over $340 million in federal contract payments in just
six months to operate the Homestead site.
"General Kelly ... was at the center of the inhumane and
poorly planned immigration policies that put children in cages while separating
thousands of families and that benefitted your company," the
lawmakers wrote in their letter. "In fact, those policies
helped a subsidiary of your company, which operates the 'nation's largest
facility for unaccompanied migrant children,' rake in hundreds of millions of
dollars in government contracts."
The lawmakers cite reporting that as a member of the board, Kelly will
advise Caliburn International on unaccompanied children specifically. They also
cited public information indicating that he is poised to earn $100,000 annually
for his services.
"General Kelly's role in promoting and helping execute these cruel
immigration policies remains a stain on his decades of public
service," the lawmakers continued. "It is
outrageous that he now appears to be cashing in on those same policies, as a
board member for the company that benefitted from his actions as a government
official."
Citing concern about the revolving door between Kelly's government service
for the Trump Administration and his lucrative decision to join a federal
contractor that benefitted from the policies he put in place, the lawmakers
have asked a series of questions to better understand how and why General Kelly
was appointed to the Caliburn board. They have requested answers from
Caliburn's CEO by June 20, 2019.
Senator Warren and Rep. Jayapal are sponsors of far-reaching ethics
legislation, the Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity Act, which would make
it illegal for Caliburn or any DHS contractor to pay Kelly or any other former
senior DHS official a dime for at least four years after they leave office.
"We intend to keep working to make that plan law so that actions like
General Kelly's rapid, cynical, and unethical shift from the government payroll
to the contractor's payroll are no longer allowed," the
lawmakers write in their letter.
In May, Senator Warren wrote to General Kelly, objecting to his decision to join
the Caliburn board and calling on him to resign immediately.
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