Suffering Pressure from the Left, Pete Buttigieg Releases Names of McKinsey Clients

Mayor Pete Buttigieg on Tuesday released a list of clients he served during his time in the private sector as a consultant with McKinsey and Company.

“The American people must be able to trust their leaders, and unfortunately, transparency, honesty, and integrity are values lacking in the current administration,” he said in a statement. “I intend to carry forward the values of transparency and responsibility with me to the White House so that the American people can begin to trust their president again.”

For weeks, supporters and advisors of Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren have highlighted Buttigieg’s time working for McKinsey as another sign he was beholden to corporate interests.

Despite a non-disclosure agreement requiring him to keep his work clients private, Buttigieg worked with McKinsey to get permission to release them publicly due to the special circumstances of him running for president.

Buttigieg’s clients included Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Toronto area grocery and retail chain Loblaws, Best Buy, the EPA, utility companies, non-profit environmental groups.

Probably his biggest client was the Department of Defense, as he worked in 2009 on a program focused on increasing employment and entrepreneurship. He also worked for the Postal Service to identify new sources of revenue in 2009 and 2010 before retiring from the firm to focus on politics.

Buttigieg immediately received criticism from the left for consulting for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, two years before dramatic layoffs in the agency.

He claimed that he helped look at overhead costs at the company, but did not participate in any dramatic analysis.

“Is your work part of what led to those layoffs?” Maddow asked.

“I doubt it,” Buttigieg replied. “I don’t know what happened in the time after I left, that was in 2007. They decided to shrink in 2009.”

But Buttigieg clarified he was sharply critical of McKinsey for taking on clients in recent months that did not reflect his values, such as work for the Trump administration’s immigration policies, China, Saudi Arabia, and Russia.
“The criticism is well deserved  … I can think of at least four times in the decade or so since I left, that I’ve opened up the newspaper and seen them doing something that was upsetting,” he said.

In a statement, Buttigieg said he was “concerned” about the left’s attempts to “demonize” his work in the private sector.

“The majority of Americans have worked in the private sector at some point in their life,” he wrote. “Good public servants – including recent Democratic presidents – have worked in the private sector at some point in their lives.”