The White House should sideline Eric Schmidt and Google

How did former Google CEO Eric Schmidt end up playing kingmaker in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy?

Schmidt has long been friends with top Democrats, but policy revealed his meddling through a charity position at an agency intended to keep a critical distance from his interests.

Schmidt’s nonprofit organization, Schmidt Futures, indirectly helped pay the salaries of two senior OSTP employees; One of them, Marc Aidinoff, is the bureau’s current Chief of Staff. Schmidt also has long ties to Eric Lander, the OSTP chief who resigned in February for demeaning and disrespecting subordinates.

The Google veteran sits on the board or holds stakes in several companies involved in artificial intelligence, 5G communications, and other core areas of OSTP. Schmidt indirectly paid people to shape policies that benefited them. . . even.

Of course, Schmidt and Google were also familiar with the Obama administration, with Googlers constantly attending White House meetings from 2009 to 2015. The tech exec also served on the Defense Innovation Board, where (according to a 2016 ethics complaint) he was allegedly trying to drum up business for Google’s cloud computing services.

But the ties to Team Biden run deeper. Schmidt Futures is a one-time client of West Exec, the consulting firm co-founded by Secretary of State Antony Blinken (and employed Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines). Schmidt himself also helped found and joined the board of directors of Rebellion Defense, a fledgling AI-focused company that has garnered 10 contracts under the Biden administration.

What’s in it for the Democrats? Not just campaign donations, but the likelihood of Google’s algorithm suppressing messages hurting Democratic election chances.

The Biden administration loves to berate American corporations as a greedy cabal of price makers, but their actions tell a different story. No wonder trust in government is at an all-time low.