Since announcing his presidential candidacy in June, Jeb Bush has made clear his distaste for officials who trade on their connections. He has assailed the revolving-door culture of Washington, calling for “a little bit of a recession” there to thin the ranks of the permanent political class. He has proposed a strict six-year ban on lobbying for departing members of the House and the Senate.
And he has shown little patience for the euphemisms of the Capitol, using derisive air quotes to describe “government relations” and “government affairs” experts.
“It’s easy for elected officials to lay out standards of performance for others,” Mr. Bush said during a July speech in Tallahassee, where he worked for eight years as Florida’s governor. “But what are the high standards worth if they’re not applied to themselves?”
Yet a review of Mr. Bush’s finances shows that he has built his personal wealth with the help of companies that had business interests with Florida while he was governor, and that singled out his political expertise and government experience as important assets. Roughly half of the $36.8 million he has earned since he left office in 2007 stems from such companies, according to campaign disclosures and government filings.
Mr. Bush’s financial ties are the focus of a planned 38-page e-book by Peter Schweizer, the researcher who recently chronicled the financial entanglements of the Clinton family in the book “Clinton Cash.” (The New York Times was one of at least three news organizations to receive a copy of the report before its publication. There were no agreements or conditions concerning how the contents would be used; The Times vetted the information and built on it with its own reporting.)
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