Former Heritage Scholar a "Fixer" in Trump's Washington

Politico recently highlighted the work of Lisa Curtis, the former Senior Research Fellow in Asian Studies at the Heritage Foundation's Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, who is now in the Trump Administration.  Here is a clip:

It may not be President Donald Trump's list of problems to solve but the relationship with Pakistan has an unfortunate habit of flaring up, and doing so at the most inopportune times.

Tasked with making headway in the thorny and knotty relationship with Islamabad is Lisa Curtis, a longtime expert on Pakistan and counterterrorism who was recruited earlier this year to the White House's National Security Council to be its senior director for South Asia.

Curtis is one of dozens of scholars at the Heritage Foundation who either advised the Trump Administration during the presidential campaign or who has actually gone into the administration.

In related news, the Heritage Foundation continues to look for a new president after Sen. Ben Sasse reportedly turned down the job.

Speakers Announced for CAP's Ideas Conference

The much-anticipated Ideas Conference - what Politico is calling the Center for American Progress's (CAP) response to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) - will take place next week.  Here are some details:

The Ideas Conference, the Center for American Progress’s response to CPAC, will be held at the Four Seasons in Georgetown on May 16.  Among the speakers: Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.)

More details can be found here.  Think Tank Watch's previous post on the Ideas Conference, which is also being called "CPAC for Liberals," can be found here.

PBS notes that the Democrats' next nominee for president could very well be speaking at the upcoming think tank conference.

Update: A video of the conference as well as a list of all the speakers can be found here.

Kushner Starts Competing White House Think Tank

In January the Steve Bannon wing of the Trump White House started an internal think tank called the Strategic Initiatives Group (SAG).  Not to be outdone, the Jared Kushner wing of the White House is starting its own internal think tank-like entity called the White House Office of American Innovation (OAI).  Here is more from The Washington Post:

President Trump plans to unveil a new White House office on Monday with sweeping authority to overhaul the federal bureaucracy and fulfill key campaign promises — such as reforming care for veterans and fighting opioid addiction — by harvesting ideas from the business world and, potentially, privatizing some government functions.

The White House Office of American Innovation, to be led by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, will operate as its own nimble power center within the West Wing and will report directly to Trump. Viewed internally as a SWAT team of strategic consultants, the office will be staffed by former business executives and is designed to infuse fresh thinking into Washington, float above the daily political grind and create a lasting legacy for a president still searching for signature achievements.

Kushner is positioning the new office as “an offensive team” — an aggressive, nonideological ideas factory capable of attracting top talent from both inside and outside of government, and serving as a conduit with the business, philanthropic and academic communities.

While some traditional think tankers may ultimately be involved in the discussions that the new think tank has, Kushner is touting the fact that most of the people involved in the new entity have little-to-no political experience.

The creation of the Strategic Initiatives Group and the Office of American Innovation shows that the White House is not willing to rely much on think tanks for policy ideas, even though some, such as the Heritage Foundation, have played a key role up to this point.

Death of Think Tanks Fast Approaching?

The death of the think tank may not be greatly exaggerated.  Why?  Simply put, President-elect Donald Trump, who will be in power for the next four or eight years, prefers businessmen over scholars.  Here is more from Josh Rogin:

For decades, Washington think tanks have been holding pens for senior government officials waiting for their next appointments and avenues of influence for sponsors of their research. Donald Trump’s incoming administration is bent on breaking that model.

Trump’s appointments have so far have been heavy on business executives and former military leaders. Transition sources tell me the next series of nominations — deputy-level officials at top agencies — will also largely come from business rather than the think tank or policy communities. For example, neither the American Enterprise Institute’s John Bolton nor the Council on Foreign Relations’ Richard Haass is likely to be chosen for deputy secretary of state, while hedge fund manager David McCormick is on the shortlist. Philip Bilden, a private equity investment firm executive with no government experience, is expected to be named secretary of the Navy.

The president-elect favors people who have been successful in the private sector and amassed personal wealth over those who have achieved prominence in academic or policy fields. Those close to him, including chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon and senior adviser Jared Kushner, see think tanks as part of a Washington culture that has failed to implement good governance, while becoming beholden to donors.

 “This is the death of think tanks as we know them in D.C.,” one transition official told me. “The people around Trump view think tanks as for sale for the highest bidder. They have empowered whole other centers of gravity for staffing this administration.”

The piece goes on to note that if Mr. Trump ends up shutting out think tanks, they will likely try to maintain influence by focusing more on Congress, industry, and foreign entities.

Others have come to the same, bleak conclusion about think tanks.  The Economist recently noted that the world has reached "peak think tank" and many have become redundant and useless.  Think Tank Watch recently wrote a piece entitled "Trump Dumping Think Tanks."

Think tanks are trying to change rapidly in order to evolve to the new environment.  The liberal Center for American Progress (CAP) has pivoted from thinking to attacking.  The Brookings Institution is touting itself as a sanctuary think tank for liberals.

To be sure, a handful of conservative think tanks have close ties to the Trump Administration, but whether they have any real influence after January 20 is an open question.

Update:

Here are some reactions from the piece:

• Bruce Bartlett: Trump could cause the death of think tanks as we know know them...but they've been brain-dead for years.

• Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza, a fellow at CAP: Trump can't kill off think tanks.  Separate streams.  He's more likely to end up outsourcing to them.

•  James Jay Carafano of the Heritage Foundation: There is room for better think tanks in Washington.

French Think Tank Hosts Trump's Son to Talk Syria

Donald Trump and his sons have been quietly embracing think tanks both in the US and overseas as they work to beef up their foreign and domestic policy credentials.  Here is the latest example from The Wall Street Journal:

Donald Trump’s eldest son, emerging as a potential envoy for the president-elect, held private discussions with diplomats, businessmen and politicians in Paris last month that focused in part on finding a way to cooperate with Russia to end the war in Syria, according to people who took part in the meetings.

Thirty people, including Donald Trump Jr., attended the Oct. 11 event at the Ritz Paris, which was hosted by a French think tank. The founder of the think tank, Fabien Baussart, and his wife, Randa Kassis, have worked closely with Russia to try to end the conflict.  Ms. Kassis, who was born in Syria, is a leader of a Syrian group endorsed by the Kremlin.

Mr. Baussart’s think tank, the Center of Political and Foreign Affairs, has hosted a number of current and former government officials and leaders of multilateral organizations, according to its website.

Those meetings have included Turkey’s former president, Abdullah Gul; former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan; and James Rubin, a one-time State Department spokesman who advised Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Here is a link to the Center of Political and Foreign Affairs (CPFA), which is based in Paris, France.  Others who have attended the think tank's events in the past include Al Gore, Bob Woodward, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Donald Rumsfeld, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) President Richard Haass, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) President John Hamre, and Brookings Institution President Strobe Talbott.

As Think Tank Watch noted last week, the lobbyist purge from Mr. Trump's transition team has allowed think tankers to gain a stronger foothold into the Trump team.

By the way, did anyone else notice that acronym for the think tank CPFA is an anagram of FCPA - the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (a US law against foreign bribery)?