- If anybody challenges us,
they will be met with a severe response.
- [Mohanad] That's Mark Esper,
a former top lobbyist at Raytheon,
the giant defense contractor,
and the U.S. current secretary of defense.
He's second in command to the president,
charged with leading all the armed forces.
But who is Mark Esper?
I'm not!
I'm Mohanad Elsheiky,
and this is a little story about a high-powered lobbyist
turned guy who stands to benefit from his former lobbying.
Mark Thomas Esper was born in 1964
in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, home of the Big Mac.
Meaning, two potentially dangerous threats to mankind
hail from the same town.
That's pretty neat.
Esper is a graduate of the famous 1986 class of West Point,
which included Secretary of State Mike Pompeo,
among other Trump administration officials.
The West Point Academy's honor code reads,
which seems worth noting for some reason.
After West Point, Esper served in the Gulf War.
He received the Bronze Star
and a Combat Infantryman Badge for his service in Iraq.
He served more than a decade on active duty.
In 1996, Esper became chief of staff
at the Heritage Foundation,
a conservative think-tank
funded by political mega donors
like Rebekah Mercer and Betsy DeVos.
Later, he worked as a senior policy advisor
for Senator Chuck Hagel,
a guy who voted for the war in Iraq.
Cool policy advising.
Hagel would later be hired by the Obama administration
to serve as the country's secretary of defense.
Esper would go on to work
in the George W. Bush administration
as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
for Negotiations Policy at the Pentagon.
In 2010, Esper was hired as vice president
of government relations at Raytheon,
where he spent seven years
as the defense contractor's top lobbyist,
making sure the U.S. government
bought as much weaponry from them as possible.
Raytheon does billions of dollars of business
with the U.S. government each year,
and during Esper's tenure,
Raytheon posted record federal lobbying spending in 2013,
dishing out $7.6 million.
Esper is essentially the face
of what President Eisenhower termed
"the military-industrial complex,"
or the relationship between the military
and the companies that make military equipment.
And now, Mark Esper is the secretary of defense.
One interesting sidebar:
Esper was confirmed two days before Trump.
According to a whistleblower,
asked Ukraine to quote "do us a favor"
and investigate his political rival, the Bidens.
And if they didn't, he would withhold
hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid.
Just an hour and 45 minutes
after the phone call on July 25th,
Trump welcomed Mark Esper in full honors ceremony
on the Pentagon's Parade Field.
During Esper's confirmation hearing,
Senator Elizabeth Warren called on him
to recuse himself from matters involving Raytheon.
- You're prohibited from participating
in any decisions involving Raytheon
for two years after your appointment as Army Secretary.
But because you have already been
in government for 20 months,
that recusal period is set to expire in November,
which means you will soon be able to participate
personally and substantially
in matters involving your former employer.
That's a conflict of interest
given that Raytheon does billions of dollars
worth of business every year with the Defense Department.
- [Mohanad] Esper stands to benefit from Raytheon's success.
He's entitled to at least $1 million
in deferred compensation
and there's nothing stopping him
from lining the pockets of his former colleagues.
Senator Elizabeth Warren knows this, and she kept pushing.
- I recently introduced legislation
to block the revolving door between the Pentagon
and giant defense contractors, like Raytheon,
by prohibiting big defense contractors
from hiring former senior DOD officials
for four years after they leave government.
If it were the law,
you couldn't go back to work at Raytheon
or any other defense contractor immediately.
In other words, it would help close the revolving door.
If confirmed, will you commit not to work for
or get paid by any defense contractor
for at least four years after your government service?
- No, Senator, I will not.
- [Mohanad] Esper was confirmed 90 to eight.
- He is not willing to make a commitment
that he will not engage in conflicts of interest
for the company - Thank you, Ms. Warren.
- for which he was a lobbyist.
This is outrageous.
- [Mohanad] Esper is in charge of the military's budget,
which stands at $738 billion.
It's a mind-boggling amount of money.
Critics argue a percentage of that money
should be spent to help the American people
in the form of universal health care
and/or free college tuition
for all Americans instead of war.
After all, the United States military
spends as much as the next eight countries combined.
It's almost as if we were warned
this would happen nearly 60 years ago.
Oh wait, we were.
- In the councils of government,
we must guard against
the acquisition of unwarranted influence,
whether sought or unsought,
by the military-industrial complex.
The potential for the disastrous rise
of misplaced power exists, and will persist.
- [Mohanad] It's unclear whether or not
Esper will work closely with Raytheon
throughout the rest of his time in the Pentagon.
After he leaves the government,
he might spin around once more in the revolving door,
all the way back to a giant defense contractor,
who might then be in a better place
because of the work he accomplished
while in the government.
Raytheon's stock surged by 1.5%
after the U.S. assassinated Qasem Soleimani.
And a president with Twitter fingers
will only fatten Esper's already fat wallet.
(quirky music)
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