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10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ajeya Cotra.md Normal file
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---
category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
tags:
- Person
- EffectiveAltruism
- OpenPhilanthropy
- AISafety
- UCBerkeley
alias:
- Ajeya Cotra
summary: "Berkeley-trained effective altruist who joined Open Philanthropy in 2016, led its technical AI-risk grantmaking, sat on the board of its grantee Redwood Research, and later joined METR's technical staff."
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Open Philanthropy]]"
role: "research analyst from July 2016; later senior program officer, Potential Risks from Advanced AI"
start: 2016-07
fn: 1
- type: founded
with: "[[Effective Altruists of Berkeley]]"
role: "student group founder"
fn: 1
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
Ajeya Cotra is an AI-risk researcher who joined [[Open Philanthropy]] in July 2016, was still on its staff in November 2023, and later joined the technical staff of the AI evaluation nonprofit [[METR]].[^1][^2] She holds a B.S. in electrical engineering and computer science from the [[University of California, Berkeley]], where, according to her Open Philanthropy biography, she "founded the Effective Altruists of Berkeley student group and taught a course on effective altruism."[^1]
### Open Philanthropy
Cotra joined Open Philanthropy in July 2016 as a research analyst. Her archived biography of November 2023 gave her title as senior program officer for "Potential Risks from Advanced AI" and stated that she "leads Open Phil's grantmaking on technical research that could help to clarify and reduce catastrophic risks from advanced AI," conducting "analysis on threat models (ways that advanced AI could cause catastrophic harm) and technical agendas." Earlier she had worked "on estimating when transformative AI might be developed, estimating the expected returns to funding across cause areas related to global catastrophic risk, and thinking about how worldview diversification could be implemented in budget allocation."[^1]
### Redwood Research
[[Redwood Research]], the [[Berkeley]] alignment nonprofit announced in October 2021 with a board of [[Nate Thomas]], [[Paul Christiano]] and Open Philanthropy's co-chief executive [[Holden Karnofsky]], received 9.42 million dollars from Open Philanthropy in November 2021, 10.7 million in August 2022, 5.3 million in June 2023, 1.1 million in May 2025 and 36 million in November 2025.[^3][^4] Redwood's return for 2023 listed Cotra as a director, alongside Thomas as board chair and [[Buck Shlegeris]] as chief executive, after Christiano had left the board "thru 6/23" and Karnofsky "thru 11/23." Its return for 2024 listed her as a director "thru 8/24."[^3] In an April 2023 critique of Redwood posted on LessWrong under the pseudonym "Omega.", the authors quoted Cotra, identified with Open Philanthropy, among those who had endorsed Redwood at its launch, describing it as "experienced and competent at software engineering and engineering management," and wrote that "a Redwood board member is married to a different OP grantmaker."[^5]
### METR
METR, which began as ARC Evals inside Christiano's [[Alignment Research Center]] before spinning off in December 2023, lists Cotra among its technical staff, not among its advisers or board. It states that it does not accept funding from AI companies and does not name Open Philanthropy among its funders.[^2]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Open Philanthropy, "Ajeya Cotra," team biography, archived November 11, 2023. http://web.archive.org/web/20231111135945/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/about/team/ajeya-cotra/
[^2]: METR, "About," retrieved September 23, 2026, https://metr.org/about ; METR, "ARC Evals is now METR," December 4, 2023. https://metr.org/blog/2023-12-04-metr-announcement/
[^3]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Redwood Research Group Inc," EIN 87-1702255, Form 990 Part VII officer listings for fiscal years 2021 to 2024, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/871702255
[^4]: Thomas, Nate. "We're Redwood Research, we do applied alignment research, AMA." LessWrong, October 6, 2021, https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qHvHvBR8L6oycnMXe/we-re-redwood-research-we-do-applied-alignment-research-ama ; Open Philanthropy, "Redwood Research, General Support," November 2021, archived August 11, 2022, http://web.archive.org/web/20220811081927/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/redwood-research-general-support/ ; "Redwood Research, General Support (2022)," archived November 6, 2022, http://web.archive.org/web/20221106183007/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/redwood-research-general-support-2/ ; "Redwood Research, General Support (2023)," archived September 12, 2023, http://web.archive.org/web/20230912095528/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/redwood-research-general-support-2023/ ; "Redwood Research, AI Safety Research Collaborations," May 2025, archived August 10, 2025, http://web.archive.org/web/20250810094119/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/redwood-research-ai-safety-research-collaborations/ ; Smith, Ben. "Coefficient Giving's CEO on Silicon Valley's $40 billion philanthropy boom." *Semafor,* September 3, 2026. https://www.semafor.com/article/09/03/2026/coefficient-givings-ceo-on-silicon-valley-40-billion-philanthropy-boom
[^5]: Omega. "Critiques of prominent AI safety labs: Redwood Research." LessWrong, April 17, 2023, linkpost of the EA Forum original. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SuZ6Guuos7CjfwRQb/critiques-of-prominent-ai-safety-labs-redwood-research

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---
category: "Political Figure"
tags:
- Person
- Pakistan
- Military
- BCCI
- MilitaryRule
alias:
- Mohammad Ayub Khan
- Muhammad Ayub Khan
- Field Marshal Ayub Khan
- General Ayub Khan
summary: "Pakistani field marshal and president whose confidant I. I. Chundrigar chaired Agha Hasan Abedi's United Bank and whose information minister later became publisher of BCCI's magazine South."
died: 1974-04-20
location: "Islamabad, Pakistan"
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
relations:
- type: member_of
with: "[[British Indian Army]]"
role: "commissioned officer"
start: 1928
fn: 1
- type: head_of
with: "[[Pakistan Army]]"
role: "first Pakistani commander-in-chief"
start: 1951-01
fn: 1
- type: head_of
with: "[[Pakistan]]"
role: "president"
fn: 1
---
Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan was a [[Pakistan|Pakistani]] army officer who became the first Pakistani commander-in-chief of the [[Pakistan Army]] in January 1951 and later ruled the country as president. [[Agha Hasan Abedi]], later founder of the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] (BCCI), cultivated his government from the founding of [[United Bank Limited|United Bank]] in 1959.[^1][^2]
### Army
Ayub Khan was commissioned as an officer in the [[British Indian Army]] in 1928. In January 1951 he was appointed the first Pakistani commander-in-chief of the army.[^1]
### United Bank and BCCI
When United Bank was formed in 1959, Abedi appointed as chairman of its board [[I. I. Chundrigar]], a former prime minister whom the [[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report|Kerry-Brown Senate report]] called "a close confidante of Pakistani's then current prime minister, Ayub Khan." The report continued: "Abedi maintained close ties to Khan's government, later hiring General Khan's minister of information to become the 'publisher' of a BCCI promotional magazine, 'South.'" The report did not name the minister. After the separation of [[Bangladesh|East Pakistan]], when [[Zulfikar Ali Bhutto]] came to power, the report said Abedi became "just as cozy with Pakistani 'socialist' Ali Bhutto, Khan's ideological opposite."[^2]
### Death
Ayub Khan died of a heart attack at his residence in [[Islamabad]] at 12:15 in the afternoon of April 20, 1974, aged 67. He had suffered from heart trouble for over eight years, "since the last days of his rule as President," had gone to the [[United States]] for an operation about two and a half years earlier, and had been admitted to the Combined Military Hospital in [[Rawalpindi]] about a month before his death. His wife, Begum Ayub Khan, and a daughter, Begum Nasim Aurangzeb, were at his bedside; his youngest son, Tahir Ayub, who reached the house ten minutes later, said that "he was speaking quite all right till almost the end and did not complain of any pain." His body was taken to his ancestral village, Rehana, for burial.[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: "From The Past Pages Of Dawn: 1974: Fifty Years Ago: Ayub passes away," *Dawn*, April 21, 2024 (reprinting a 1974 dispatch of the Dawn Islamabad Bureau). https://www.dawn.com/news/1828743
[^2]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 3, "The Origin and Early Years of BCCI," section "Abedi As Pakistani Political Paymaster" (citing testimony of Masihur Rahman, S. Hrg. 102-350, pt. 1, p. 540). https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/03hist.htm

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---
category: "Authors & Journalists"
tags:
- Person
- Journalist
- Politico
- ArtificialIntelligence
- OpenPhilanthropy
summary: "Politico technology reporter, previously at National Journal, Morning Consult, National Review and the Daily Caller, who in 2023 reported on Open Philanthropy's network of funded AI policy fellows."
location: "Washington, D.C., USA"
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Politico]]"
start: 2022
fn: 2
- type: employed_by
with: "[[National Journal]]"
role: "technology correspondent"
start: 2017
end: 2022
fn: 1
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Morning Consult]]"
end: 2017
fn: 1
- type: employed_by
with: "[[National Review]]"
role: "political reporter"
fn: 1
- type: employed_by
with: "[[The Daily Caller]]"
fn: 1
- type: investigated
with: "[[Open Philanthropy]]"
start: 2023
fn: 5
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
Brendan Bordelon is an American technology policy reporter at *[[Politico]]*. A native of the [[San Francisco Bay Area]] and a graduate of the [[University of California, Riverside]], he worked at *[[The Daily Caller]]*, for two years as a political reporter at *[[National Review]]*, and at [[Morning Consult]], covering technology and cybersecurity policy, before [[National Journal]] hired him as technology correspondent from March 27, 2017.[^1] He also holds a master's degree from [[George Washington University]].[^2]
### Politico
Bordelon joined Politico on January 25, 2022 to write the *Morning Tech* newsletter.[^2] In January 2023 the global technology editor, [[Steve Heuser]], named him "Tech Influence reporter," covering the industry's influence on politics and policy.[^3] In September 2026 he was one of four authors, with [[Calder McHugh]], [[Christine Mui]] and [[Sam Sutton]], of the newsletter of Politico's new technology policy unit, Decoded.[^4]
### Reporting on Open Philanthropy
On October 13, 2023 Bordelon reported on the policy fellows funded by [[Open Philanthropy]], writing that the [[Horizon Institute for Public Service]] was "a nonprofit that Open Philanthropy effectively created in 2022," that Horizon fellows worked in the offices of Senators [[Martin Heinrich]], [[Mike Rounds]] and [[Todd Young]], and that the [[Center for Security and Emerging Technology]] was "funded almost entirely by Open Philanthropy." He described [[Jason Matheny]] of the [[RAND Corporation]] as "a luminary in the effective altruist community."[^5] On December 15, 2023 he reported on RAND's part in [[Joe Biden]]'s executive order on AI.[^6] *[[Semafor]]* reported in December 2025 that Open Philanthropy had been "bothered by media coverage of it, in particular a series of critical stories from Politico."[^7]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Roush, Chris. "National Journal hires Bordelon as tech reporter." *Talking Biz News,* March 20, 2017. https://talkingbiznews.com/they-talk-biz-news/national-journal-hires-bordelon-as-tech-reporter/
[^2]: Ahmed, Mariam. "Bordelon to join Politico to anchor 'Morning Tech' newsletter." *Talking Biz News,* January 7, 2022. https://talkingbiznews.com/they-talk-biz-news/bordelon-to-join-politico-to-anchor-morning-tech-newsletter/
[^3]: Roush, Chris. "Politico names Ives its deputy tech editor, Bordelon its tech influence reporter." *Talking Biz News,* January 7, 2023. https://talkingbiznews.com/media-news/politico-names-ives-its-deputy-tech-editor-bordelon-its-tech-influence-reporter/
[^4]: Roush, Chris. "Politico launches Decoded, a tech policy coverage initiative." *Talking Biz News,* September 16, 2026. https://talkingbiznews.com/media-news/politico-launches-decoded-a-tech-policy-coverage-initiative/
[^5]: Bordelon, Brendan. "How a billionaire-backed network of AI advisers took over Washington." *Politico,* October 13, 2023. http://web.archive.org/web/20250902172514/https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/13/open-philanthropy-funding-ai-policy-00121362
[^6]: Bordelon, Brendan. "Think tank tied to tech billionaires played key role in Biden's AI order." *Politico,* December 15, 2023, archived February 11, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260211112614/https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/15/billionaire-backed-think-tank-played-key-role-in-bidens-ai-order-00132128
[^7]: Tani, Max. "AI critics funded AI coverage at top newsrooms." *Semafor,* December 7, 2025. https://www.semafor.com/article/12/07/2025/ai-critics-funded-ai-coverage-at-top-newsrooms

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10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Dennis DeConcini.md Normal file
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---
category: "Political Figure"
tags:
- Person
- Senator
- Arizona
- KeatingFive
- SavingsAndLoan
- BCCI
- Intelligence
alias:
- Dennis Webster DeConcini
- Dennis Deconcini
- Senator DeConcini
summary: "Democratic senator from Arizona from 1977 to 1995, one of the Keating Five, and chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in the 103rd Congress."
born: 1937-05-08
location: "Tucson, Arizona"
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
relations:
- type: member_of
with: "[[United States Senate]]"
role: "Democratic senator from Arizona"
start: 1977-01-03
end: 1995-01-03
fn: 1
- type: head_of
with: "[[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]]"
role: "chairman, 103rd Congress"
start: 1993-01-03
end: 1995-01-03
fn: 1
- type: investigated
with: "[[Senate Ethics Committee]]"
reverse: true
role: "Keating Five inquiry; conduct found to give the appearance of being improper"
end: 1991-02
fn: 3
---
Dennis Webster DeConcini was a Democratic [[United States Senate|United States senator]] from [[Arizona]] from 1977 to 1995. He was one of the five senators who met federal bank regulators on behalf of [[Charles Keating]]'s [[Lincoln Savings and Loan]], and he chaired the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] in his last Congress.[^1][^2]
### Early Career
DeConcini was born in [[Tucson]], Pima County, on May 8, 1937, and attended public schools in Tucson and [[Phoenix, Arizona|Phoenix]]. He graduated from the [[University of Arizona]] in 1959 and from its law school in 1963, and served in the [[United States Army]] from 1959 to 1960 and the Army Reserve from 1960 to 1967. He was admitted to the Arizona bar in 1963 and practised in Tucson, was a member of the Arizona governor's staff from 1965 to 1967, and was Pima County attorney from 1973 to 1976.[^1]
### Senate
He was elected to the Senate in 1976, reelected in 1982 and 1988, and served from January 3, 1977, to January 3, 1995. He did not run in 1994. In the 103rd Congress, from 1993 to 1995, he was chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence.[^1]
### Keating Five
Keating and his associates contributed 1.3 million dollars to the campaigns and favoured political causes of five senators, [[Alan Cranston]], DeConcini, [[John Glenn]], [[Donald W. Riegle Jr.|Donald Riegle]] and [[John McCain]], most of it while the [[Federal Home Loan Bank Board]] was investigating Lincoln. All but Riegle met the bank board's chairman, [[Edwin Gray]], on Keating's behalf on April 2, 1987, and all five met a week later with four regulators from [[San Francisco]] who were in charge of the Lincoln examination. The government seized the thrift, based in Irvine, California, in April 1989.[^2]
In February 1991 the [[Senate Ethics Committee]] divided on party lines over four of the five. According to congressional sources, its three Democrats, the chairman [[Howell Heflin]], [[David Pryor]] and [[Terry Sanford]], wanted DeConcini, Riegle, Glenn and McCain treated alike, possibly through letters of criticism, while its three Republicans, [[Warren Rudman]], [[Trent Lott]] and [[Jesse Helms]], wanted McCain and Glenn dismissed; the committee's special counsel, Robert Bennett, had reportedly advised in a confidential report of September 1990 that there was no evidence Glenn and McCain had broken Senate rules.[^2] At the end of the 14-month investigation the committee concluded that Cranston may have committed major ethics violations and that no action was needed against the other four. It found that DeConcini's and Riegle's actions gave the appearance of being improper, and that Glenn and McCain had "exercised poor judgment."[^3]
### BCCI
In early 1990, after the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] (BCCI) pleaded guilty to money laundering charges in [[Tampa, Florida|Tampa]], several members of Congress criticized the plea agreement as too lenient. According to the [[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report|Kerry-Brown Senate report]], "Documents obtained by the Subcommittee show that Barcella met with Senator Dennis Deconcini, one of the critics of the plea bargain, in an effort to persuade him that BCCI was not the corrupt institution that he and others had claimed." [[E. Lawrence Barcella, Jr.|Lawrence Barcella]], a former federal prosecutor, was then coordinating BCCI's defense. The report records no other contact between DeConcini and BCCI or its lawyers.[^4]
### Footnotes
[^1]: "DeCONCINI, Dennis Webster (1937-)," *Biographical Directory of the United States Congress* (Retro edition), archived October 1, 2021. http://web.archive.org/web/20211001181614/https://bioguideretro.congress.gov/Home/MemberDetails?memIndex=d000185
[^2]: "Panel Split on Punishing Keating 5," Associated Press, in the *Roanoke Times*, February 8, 1991, p. A-2. https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/ROA-Times/issues/1991/rt9102/910208/02080761.htm
[^3]: "No Wrist-Slap for the Keating Five," *Deseret News*, March 1, 1991. https://www.deseret.com/1991/3/1/18908149/no-wrist-slap-for-the-keating-five/
[^4]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 17, "BCCI's Lawyers and Lobbyists." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/17law.htm

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---
category: "Technologists"
tags:
- Person
- OpenAI
- SuperPAC
- MAGAInc
- LeadingTheFuture
alias:
- Greg Brockman
- Gregory Brockman
summary: "OpenAI cofounder and first chief technology officer who quit when removed as board chairman in November 2023, returned as president, and with Anna Brockman gave 50 million dollars to two political committees in 2025."
location: "San Francisco, California"
relations:
- type: founded
with: "[[OpenAI]]"
role: "cofounder and founding chief technology officer"
start: 2015-12
fn: 1
- type: employed_by
with: "[[OpenAI]]"
role: "president"
fn: 5
- type: funded
with: "[[MAGA Inc.]]"
role: "12.5 million dollars"
start: 2025-09-12
fn: 10
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
Greg Brockman is a cofounder and the president of [[OpenAI]], the [[San Francisco]] artificial-intelligence company. When OpenAI was announced as a nonprofit laboratory on December 11, 2015, he was among the backers of its one-billion-dollar funding pledge, with [[Elon Musk]], [[Sam Altman]], [[Reid Hoffman]], [[Jessica Livingston]], [[Peter Thiel]], [[Amazon Web Services]] and [[Infosys]], and he became its chief technology officer, with Musk and Altman as co-chairs and [[Ilya Sutskever]] as chief scientist.[^1][^2]
### The 2023 Board Crisis
On November 17, 2023, OpenAI announced that Altman would leave as chief executive and the board, and that Brockman would step down as chairman of the board while remaining at the company. The directors who acted were Sutskever, [[Adam D'Angelo]], [[Tasha McCauley]] and [[Helen Toner]].[^3] Brockman quit instead.[^4] Microsoft's chief executive, [[Satya Nadella]], announced on November 20 that Altman and Brockman would lead a new advanced-research lab inside [[Microsoft]].[^4]
OpenAI's announcement of November 29, 2023 was subtitled "Mira Murati as CTO, Greg Brockman returns as President," restoring [[Mira Murati]] as chief technology officer, and named a new initial board of [[Bret Taylor]] as chair, [[Larry Summers]] and D'Angelo. Altman wrote to staff: "Greg and I are partners in running this company. We have never quite figured out how to communicate that on the org chart, but we will." Taylor wrote that the board was "thrilled that Sam, Mira and Greg are back together leading the company."[^5] The review that the board's special committee commissioned from the law firm [[WilmerHale]] covered "the November 17, 2023 removal of Sam Altman and Greg Brockman from the OpenAI Board of Directors and Mr. Altman's termination as CEO." On March 8, 2024, the committee recommended that the full board "endorse the November 21 decision to rehire Mr. Altman and Mr. Brockman," and Taylor stated: "We have unanimously concluded that Sam and Greg are the right leaders for OpenAI."[^6]
In December 2023 OpenAI's superalignment team published "Weak-to-strong generalization," listing [[Collin Burns]] first among its authors and Brockman and Sutskever among its contributors.[^7] Burns was selected in April 2026 to direct the federal [[U.S. AI Safety Institute|Center for AI Standards and Innovation]] and removed within days.[^8] In February 2024 Musk sued OpenAI, Altman and Brockman in California state court for breach of contract over the company's founding agreement.[^9]
### Political Giving
On September 12, 2025, Brockman gave 12,500,000 dollars to the super PAC [[Leading the Future]] and 12,500,000 dollars to the hybrid political committee [[MAGA Inc.]], listing his employer as OpenAI and his occupation as "President and Co-Founder." [[Anna Brockman]] of San Francisco gave the same amounts to both committees on the same day; the MAGA Inc. filing lists her occupation as "Retired." The four contributions total 50 million dollars.[^10] With 50 million dollars from the management company of [[Andreessen Horowitz]], attributed half to [[Marc Andreessen]] and half to [[Ben Horowitz]], and 100,000 dollars from the company behind [[Perplexity]], the Brockmans' 25 million dollars made up Leading the Future's 75.1 million dollars in contributions through July 2026.[^10][^11] The committee passed most of its money to affiliated committees; one of them, [[Think Big (PAC)|Think Big]], spent 8,145,697.68 dollars opposing [[Alex Bores]], the New York Assembly member who sponsored the state's [[RAISE Act]] on AI safety, in the Democratic primary for the 12th congressional district, where the [[Anthropic]]-funded [[Public First Action]] backed him.[^12][^13]
### Footnotes
[^1]: "OpenAI launches as a nonprofit with a billion-dollar pledge," December 11, 2015. *IEEE Spectrum,* December 2015. https://spectrum.ieee.org/billiondollar-nonprofit-ai-research-lab-to-open-in-san-francisco
[^2]: "The messy, secretive reality behind OpenAI's bid to save the world." *MIT Technology Review,* February 17, 2020. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/02/17/844721/ai-openai-moonshot-elon-musk-sam-altman-greg-brockman-messy-secretive-reality/
[^3]: OpenAI. "OpenAI announces leadership transition." November 17, 2023, archived November 17, 2023. http://web.archive.org/web/20231117210540/https://openai.com/blog/openai-announces-leadership-transition
[^4]: "Effective Altruism's Role in the OpenAI Chaos, Explained." *Bloomberg,* November 22, 2023. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-22/effective-altruism-s-role-in-the-openai-chaos-explained
[^5]: OpenAI. "Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board." November 29, 2023, archived September 13, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260913004743/https://openai.com/index/sam-altman-returns-as-ceo-openai-has-a-new-initial-board/
[^6]: OpenAI. "Review completed & Altman, Brockman to continue to lead OpenAI." March 8, 2024, archived September 13, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260913014725/https://openai.com/index/review-completed-altman-brockman-to-continue-to-lead-openai/
[^7]: OpenAI. "Weak-to-strong generalization." December 14, 2023, archived September 17, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260917090610/https://openai.com/index/weak-to-strong-generalization/
[^8]: Mitchell, Elizabeth Troutman. "Trump Admin Changes Plan to Tap Former Anthropic Researcher to Direct Federal AI Safety Org." *The Daily Signal,* April 23, 2026, https://www.dailysignal.com/2026/04/23/trump-anthropic-researcher/ ; Khanna, Ro. Letter to Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, August 13, 2026. https://democrats-selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/8.13.26-khanna-letter-to-commerce-on-caisi.pdf
[^9]: "Elon Musk sues OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman over contract breach." *CNBC,* March 1, 2024. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/01/elon-musk-sues-openai-and-ceo-sam-altman-over-contract-breach.html
[^10]: Federal Election Commission, itemized receipts (Schedule A) for committees C00916114 (Leading the Future) and C00892471 (MAGA Inc.), contributor name Brockman, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?committee_id=C00916114&contributor_name=Brockman ; https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?committee_id=C00892471&contributor_name=Brockman
[^11]: Federal Election Commission, financial totals and itemized receipts for committee C00916114, 2025 to 2026 cycle, through the report of July 15, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00916114/?tab=summary
[^12]: Federal Election Commission, committee C00923417 ("Think Big"), independent expenditures (Schedule E), by-candidate aggregation for Alex Bores, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://www.fec.gov/data/independent-expenditures/?committee_id=C00923417
[^13]: Bellan, Rebecca. "Anthropic-funded group backs candidate attacked by rival AI super PAC." *TechCrunch,* February 20, 2026. https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/20/anthropic-funded-group-backs-candidate-attacked-by-rival-ai-super-pac/

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---
category: "Authors & Journalists"
tags:
- Person
- Journalist
- Philanthropy
- EffectiveAltruism
- OpenPhilanthropy
summary: "Former Fortune senior writer who covers foundations, effective altruism and psychedelics, and whose 2018 Stanford Social Innovation Review article mapped the entities around Cari Tuna and Open Philanthropy."
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Fortune (magazine)]]"
role: "senior writer"
fn: 2
- type: investigated
with: "[[Open Philanthropy]]"
start: 2018
fn: 2
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
Marc Gunther is an American journalist who has worked as a reporter for nearly 50 years, on politics, government, television, the media business, corporate sustainability, the nonprofit world and psychedelics, for *[[Fortune (magazine)|Fortune]]*, *[[The Guardian]]*, *[[The Chronicle of Philanthropy]]* and other publications. He edits the Medium publications *Nonprofit Chronicles*, *The Psychedelic Renaissance* and *The Great Vape Debate*, and describes his subjects as "psychedelics, smoking and vaping, animal rights, philanthropy and effective altruism."[^1]
### Open Philanthropy
In the Summer 2018 issue of the *[[Stanford Social Innovation Review]]*, which described him as a former senior writer at *Fortune* and author or co-author of four books, Gunther profiled [[Cari Tuna]], who became an effective altruist after reading [[Peter Singer]]'s *The Life You Can Save* and joined the board of [[GiveWell]] in 2011. He wrote that she played "a key role in no fewer than seven entities" as a director or major donor, including [[Good Ventures]], the [[Open Philanthropy Action Fund]] and donor-advised funds at the [[Silicon Valley Community Foundation]]. [[Alexander Berger]] told him that "each has a reason for being" and that "tax considerations are key." Gunther reported that [[Holden Karnofsky]], a co-founder of GiveWell who had worked at [[Bridgewater Associates]], sat on the board of [[OpenAI]], that Good Ventures made its first grant, of 50,000 dollars, to GiveWell in 2011, and that [[Open Philanthropy]], which separated from GiveWell in 2017, "does not disclose its annual operating costs or the salaries or benefits of its highest-paid staff members."[^2]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Gunther, Marc. "About." *Medium,* archived April 14, 2025. http://web.archive.org/web/20250414190549/https://marcgunther.medium.com/about
[^2]: Gunther, Marc. "Giving in the Light of Reason." *Stanford Social Innovation Review,* Summer 2018. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/giving_in_the_light_of_reason

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---
category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
tags:
- Person
- Anthropic
- CarnegieEndowment
- StanfordUniversity
- PresidentsIntelligenceAdvisoryBoard
- AIGovernance
alias:
- Tino Cuéllar
- Tino Cuellar
- Mariano-Florentino Cuellar
summary: "Former California Supreme Court justice and Carnegie Endowment president who sat on Anthropic's Long-Term Benefit Trust in 2026 before becoming Anthropic's first chief global affairs officer in August 2026."
location: "Matamoros, Mexico (born)"
relations:
- type: head_of
with: "[[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]]"
role: "president"
start: 2021-11
end: 2026-06
fn: 1
- type: member_of
with: "[[Long-Term Benefit Trust]]"
role: "trustee"
start: 2026-01
end: 2026-08
fn: 2
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Anthropic]]"
role: "chief global affairs officer"
start: 2026-08
fn: 2
- type: director_of
with: "[[Inflection AI]]"
role: "board member"
fn: 1
- type: director_of
with: "[[LawZero]]"
role: "board member"
fn: 1
- type: director_of
with: "[[Harvard University]]"
role: "board member"
fn: 1
- type: head_of
with: "[[William and Flora Hewlett Foundation]]"
role: "board chair"
fn: 1
- type: member_of
with: "[[President's Intelligence Advisory Board]]"
fn: 1
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Stanford University]]"
role: "Stanley Morrison Professor; director, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies"
fn: 1
- type: spouse_of
with: "[[Lucy Koh]]"
fn: 1
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
Mariano-Florentino "Tino" Cuéllar is a lawyer, political scientist and former justice of the [[Supreme Court of California]] who was president of the [[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]] from November 2021 to June 2026 and in August 2026 became the first chief global affairs officer of [[Anthropic]].[^1][^2] He was born in [[Matamoros]], Mexico, and grew up mainly in communities along the U.S.-Mexico border. He graduated from [[Harvard University|Harvard College]] and [[Yale Law School]] and holds a Ph.D. in political science from [[Stanford University]]. He is married to Judge [[Lucy Koh]] of the [[Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals|U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit]]; they have two children.[^1]
### Government and Stanford
Cuéllar began his career at the [[Department of the Treasury|U.S. Department of the Treasury]] in [[Bill Clinton]]'s second term. In the first term of the [[Barack Obama]] administration he led the [[White House]] [[Domestic Policy Council]]'s teams on civil and criminal justice, public health, immigration and regulatory reform; he had earlier co-chaired the Obama-Biden transition's immigration working group, and he co-chaired the Department of Education's Equity and Excellence Commission. He has served on the [[President's Intelligence Advisory Board]] and the [[State Department]]'s Foreign Affairs Policy Board.[^1]
At Stanford he was the Stanley Morrison Professor, with appointments in law, political science and international affairs; he directed the [[Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies]], co-directed the [[Center for International Security and Cooperation]] and led its Honors Program in International Security Studies.[^1] Anthropic's announcement adds that he directed the Stanford Cyber Initiative, holds the Cameron Schrier Family Professorship at [[Stanford Law School]], where he "began organizing classes on artificial intelligence nearly a decade ago," and is a senior fellow at Stanford's [[Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence|Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence]].[^2] During nearly seven years on the California Supreme Court, while continuing to teach at Stanford, he wrote opinions on "separation of powers, policing and criminal justice, democracy, technology and privacy, international agreements, and climate and environmental law."[^1]
He is a member of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] and chairs the board of the [[William and Flora Hewlett Foundation]]. He previously chaired the boards of the [[Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences]] and the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies. The [[National Academy of Sciences]] appointed him to its Committee on Responsible Computing Research, and he co-chaired the bipartisan Task Force on Nuclear Proliferation and American Security and co-led California's Frontier AI Working Group.[^1][^2]
### Carnegie Endowment
Cuéllar became president of the endowment in November 2021; [[William Burns]] had been its president from 2015 to 2021.[^1][^3] In March 2022 [[Open Philanthropy]] recommended 597,717 dollars over two years to the endowment for "a research project on international AI governance led by [[Matt Sheehan]]."[^4] When [[Holden Karnofsky]] left Open Philanthropy for Carnegie as a visiting scholar on April 29, 2024, he wrote: "Tino Cuellar, Carnegie's President, has been an advocate for taking (what I see as) the biggest risks from AI seriously. Carnegie is looking to increase its attention to AI risk."[^5] Karnofsky, whose wife [[Daniela Amodei]] is Anthropic's president, joined Anthropic in January 2025.[^6] Cuéllar's Carnegie biography lists him as a director of [[Inflection AI]], Harvard University and [[LawZero]], and as a trustee of Anthropic's [[Long-Term Benefit Trust]].[^1]
### Anthropic
Cuéllar joined the Long-Term Benefit Trust, the body holding Anthropic's Class T shares and empowered to elect a growing share of its board, in January 2026, when the trustees [[Kanika Bahl]] and [[Zach Robinson]] left. [[Richard Fontaine]], chief executive of the [[Center for a New American Security]], had joined in May 2025, and [[Ben Bernanke]], former chairman of the [[Federal Reserve Board|Federal Reserve]], joined in July 2026.[^7] He left Carnegie in June 2026.[^1]
On August 4, 2026, Anthropic announced that he would join the company as its first chief global affairs officer, "leading the company's work on policy, strategic international engagement, and government relationships worldwide," and that he had stepped down from the trust, which would select a successor "under its normal process." Cuéllar said: "Democracies must set the terms on which this technology advances, and there is no more consequential place to be shaping that work right now than Anthropic." Daniela Amodei said that he had "spent his career helping public institutions respond to times of change with thoughtfulness, pragmatism, and deep commitment to the common good."[^2]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar," former president (2021 to 2026), biography, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://carnegieendowment.org/people/mariano-florentino-tino-cuellar
[^2]: Anthropic, "Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar to join Anthropic as Chief Global Affairs Officer," August 4, 2026. https://www.anthropic.com/news/tino-cuellar
[^3]: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "William J. Burns," former president (2015 to 2021), biography, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://carnegieendowment.org/people/william-j-burns
[^4]: Open Philanthropy, "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, AI Governance Research," March 2022, archived July 8, 2022. http://web.archive.org/web/20220708131413/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/carnegie-endowment-for-international-peace-ai-governance-research/
[^5]: Karnofsky, Holden. "Joining the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace." EA Forum, April 29, 2024. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7gzgwgwefwBku2cnL/joining-the-carnegie-endowment-for-international-peace
[^6]: Mathews, Jessica. "Anthropic hired president Daniela Amodei's husband to work on the company's AI safety strategy." *Fortune,* February 13, 2025. https://fortune.com/2025/02/13/anthropic-hired-president-daniela-amodei-husband-ai-safety-responsible-scaling/
[^7]: Anthropic, "The Long-Term Benefit Trust," September 19, 2023, with later updates on changes in the trust's composition. https://www.anthropic.com/news/the-long-term-benefit-trust

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---
category: "Authors & Journalists"
tags:
- Person
- Journalist
- TimeMagazine
- OpenPhilanthropy
- EffectiveAltruism
summary: "Former Time international editor and executive editor who joined Open Philanthropy, now Coefficient Giving, in July 2024 and leads its communications team."
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Time]]"
role: "reporter, later international editor and executive editor"
end: 2024
fn: 1
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Open Philanthropy]]"
role: "managing director, communications"
start: 2024
fn: 1
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Newsweek]]"
fn: 1
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
---
Naina Bajekal is a journalist and the managing director for communications of Coefficient Giving, the name taken in November 2025 by [[Open Philanthropy]], the grantmaker of [[Dustin Moskovitz]] and [[Cari Tuna]]. She joined in July 2024.[^1]
### Journalism
Bajekal holds a B.A. in English literature and modern languages from the [[University of Oxford]]. She began as a reporter in the [[London]] bureau of *[[Time]]*, held editing roles at *[[Newsweek]]*, [[Magnum Photos]] and the [[Fuller Project]], and returned to *Time* in 2018, where over six years she was international editor and executive editor, edited more than 30 cover stories and launched Women of the Year and the TIME100 AI list.[^1]
### Coefficient Giving
In December 2025 *[[Semafor]]* reported that *Time* had hosted four fellows of the [[Tarbell Center for AI Journalism]], most of whose funding came from Coefficient Giving. Bajekal said Coefficient had "no involvement in coverage decisions" and that AI held "enormous potential to accelerate science and fuel economic growth."[^2]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Coefficient Giving. "Naina Bajekal." Team page, archived May 23, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260523180247/https://coefficientgiving.org/team/naina-bajekal/
[^2]: Tani, Max. "AI critics funded AI coverage at top newsrooms." *Semafor,* December 7, 2025. https://www.semafor.com/article/12/07/2025/ai-critics-funded-ai-coverage-at-top-newsrooms

10
10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Paul Christiano.md
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@ -42,9 +42,13 @@ Paul Christiano led alignment research at [[OpenAI]] from 2017 to 2021 and contr
In September 2023 Christiano became one of the five original trustees of [[Anthropic]]'s [[Long-Term Benefit Trust]], the body empowered to elect a growing share of the board of the company founded by Dario and Daniela Amodei. He left in April 2024 to become head of AI safety at the [[U.S. AI Safety Institute]].[^3] Commerce Secretary [[Gina Raimondo]] announced the appointment on April 16, 2024.[^4] The Action Fund of the [[Center for AI Safety]], an Open Philanthropy grantee, stated that it had led a bipartisan congressional effort that "secured $10 million to establish" the institute.[^5]
### U.S. AI Safety Institute
On March 7, 2024, *[[VentureBeat]]* reported, citing unnamed sources, that staff members at the [[National Institute of Standards and Technology]] were threatening to resign over Christiano's expected appointment, that the hire "was allegedly rushed through the hiring process without anyone knowing until today," that it had come directly from Raimondo, and that staff feared his ties to effective altruism and longtermism "could threaten the institute's objectivity."[^6] The April 16 announcement placed him alongside the institute's director, [[Elizabeth Kelly]], its chief technology officer, [[Elham Tabassi]], and four other new leaders, among them the Stanford political scientist [[Rob Reich]] as senior advisor; the Commerce Department stated that Christiano would "design and conduct tests of frontier AI models, focusing on model evaluations for capabilities of national security concern."[^4][^7] Christiano had been expected to join the board of [[METR]], the evaluations group his Alignment Research Center had incubated as ARC Evals; its announcements of September and December 2023 stated that "he declined involvement in light of his new role as Head of Safety at the US AI Safety Institute."[^8] In June 2025 the Commerce Department under [[Howard Lutnick]] renamed the institute the Center for AI Standards and Innovation.[^9]
### The OpenAI Foundation
On September 9, 2026, the [[OpenAI Foundation]], the nonprofit that controls OpenAI Group PBC, appointed Christiano to its board and its Safety and Security Committee, chaired by [[Zico Kolter]], and made him a non-voting observer on the board of the for-profit company. The announcement described him as a senior technical advisor at the [[Center for AI Standards and Innovation]] within the [[National Institute of Standards and Technology]], where he had "worked on evaluating frontier AI models, including capabilities with national security implications," and stated: "As a Senior Technical Advisor, Paul will recuse himself from all OpenAI-related matters as well as all model evaluations." The board chair, [[Bret Taylor]], said his "experience working on frontier AI safety and standards in government" would strengthen the board's oversight.[^1]
On September 9, 2026, the [[OpenAI Foundation]], the nonprofit that controls OpenAI Group PBC, appointed Christiano to its board and its Safety and Security Committee, chaired by [[Zico Kolter]], and made him a non-voting observer on the board of the for-profit company. The announcement described him as a senior technical advisor at the Center for AI Standards and Innovation within the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where he had "worked on evaluating frontier AI models, including capabilities with national security implications," and stated: "As a Senior Technical Advisor, Paul will recuse himself from all OpenAI-related matters as well as all model evaluations." The board chair, [[Bret Taylor]], said his "experience working on frontier AI safety and standards in government" would strengthen the board's oversight.[^1]
### Footnotes
@ -53,3 +57,7 @@ On September 9, 2026, the [[OpenAI Foundation]], the nonprofit that controls Ope
[^3]: Anthropic, "The Long-Term Benefit Trust," September 19, 2023, with later updates. https://www.anthropic.com/news/the-long-term-benefit-trust
[^4]: National Institute of Standards and Technology, "U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo Announces Expansion of U.S. AI Safety Institute Leadership Team," April 16, 2024. https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2024/04/us-commerce-secretary-gina-raimondo-announces-expansion-us-ai-safety
[^5]: Center for AI Safety Action Fund, "2024 Annual Impact Report." https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/66438c042d15b14b53b83006/68012dcfec6880aba24f528a_CAIS-ActionFund-ImpactReport_05.pdf
[^6]: Goldman, Sharon. "NIST staffers revolt against expected appointment of 'effective altruist' AI researcher to US AI Safety Institute." *VentureBeat,* March 7, 2024. https://venturebeat.com/ai/nist-staffers-revolt-against-potential-appointment-of-effective-altruist-ai-researcher-to-us-ai-safety-institute
[^7]: U.S. Department of Commerce, "U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo Announces Expansion of U.S. AI Safety Institute Leadership Team," April 16, 2024, archived December 31, 2024. http://web.archive.org/web/20241231010954/https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2024/04/us-commerce-secretary-gina-raimondo-announces-expansion-us-ai-safety
[^8]: Barnes, Beth. "ARC Evals is spinning out from ARC." METR, September 19, 2023, https://metr.org/blog/2023-09-19-spin-out-announcement/ ; METR, "ARC Evals is now METR," December 4, 2023. https://metr.org/blog/2023-12-04-metr-announcement/
[^9]: Mitchell, Elizabeth Troutman. "Trump Admin Changes Plan to Tap Former Anthropic Researcher to Direct Federal AI Safety Org." *The Daily Signal,* April 23, 2026. https://www.dailysignal.com/2026/04/23/trump-anthropic-researcher/

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---
category: "BCCI Scandal"
tags:
- Person
- Lawyer
- Prosecutor
- BCCI
- RevolvingDoor
- WhiteCollarDefense
alias:
- Ray Banoun
summary: "Former head of the fraud division of the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington who defended BCCI from 1988 and whom the Senate subcommittee found may have willfully misled it."
location: "Washington, D.C."
created: 2026-09-23
updated: 2026-09-23
relations:
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Department of Justice]]"
role: "Assistant United States Attorney, District of Columbia, for 13 years; head of the Fraud Division"
fn: 1
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Arent Fox]]"
role: "partner; chair of the Business Fraud Group"
fn: 1
- type: represented
with: "[[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]]"
role: "defense counsel brought in by Robert Altman; oversaw production of documents to the Senate subcommittee"
start: 1988
fn: 2
- type: subject_of
with: "[[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report]]"
role: "found to have possibly acted unethically by willfully misleading the subcommittee"
start: 1992-12
fn: 2
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft]]"
role: "partner for 25 years; founder of the White Collar Group; managing partner of the Washington office for 10 years"
fn: 1
- type: founded
with: "[[Banoun Law]]"
fn: 1
---
Raymond Banoun is an American lawyer who was for thirteen years an Assistant [[United States]] Attorney for the District of Columbia, heading its Fraud Division, and who from 1988 was one of the defense lawyers of the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International]] (BCCI) in Washington. The Senate subcommittee of [[John Kerry]] concluded that he "may have acted unethically by willfully misleading it in an attempt to impede the investigation."[^1][^2]
### Prosecutor
Banoun received a B.A. from the City College of New York in 1965 and a J.D. with honors from [[George Washington University]] Law School in 1968. He clerked for U.S. District Judge [[Harold H. Greene]], served for three years as a Special Assistant to the United States Attorney for the Central District of California in [[Los Angeles]], and for thirteen years as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, where he headed the Fraud Division.[^1]
### BCCI
He then became a partner at [[Arent Fox]], Kintner, Plotkin & Kahn in Washington, where he chaired the Business Fraud Group.[^1] The [[BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report|Kerry-Brown Senate report]] listed him with [[Lawrence Wechsler]] and [[E. Lawrence Barcella, Jr.|Lawrence Barcella]] as the former federal prosecutors among BCCI's Washington "cadre of professional help," which also included [[Clark Clifford]], former members of Congress [[John Culver]] and [[Michael Barnes]], and the former [[Federal Reserve Board|Federal Reserve]] attorneys [[Baldwin Tuttle]], Jerry Hawke and Michael Bradfield. [[Robert Altman]] brought Banoun into the case, according to the report, "to assist in the bank's defense." The report stated: "Aside from Altman, the lawyer who had the most contact with the Subcommittee concerning BCCI was Banoun."[^2]
Altman charged him with overseeing the production of documents in response to the subpoenas the subcommittee issued to BCCI in the summer of 1988, among them "all records relating to General Noriega's accounts in the United States." The subcommittee received information that was "clearly incomplete." Banoun told *[[Newsweek]]* that he had cooperated fully, but that "lawyers don't go around searching for documents for clients"; he told the *National Journal* that the subcommittee had been "outlawyered," adding, "We don't allow our clients to get pushed around. This is an adversary system, not a roll-over system"; and he complained to the *Legal Times* that "more and more these days the government [is] wanting information obtained under the attorney-client privilege and attorney work product," calling it "an unfortunate and frightening sign because it erodes very seriously the ability of a lawyer to represent a client." The report noted that "BCCI, of course, waived it [sic] attorney client privilege."[^2]
On May 14, 1989, Altman, Banoun and Wechsler met subcommittee staff and produced 775 pages of new documents concerning General [[Manuel Noriega]]. The lawyers stated that they had relied on the statements of the BCCI officer [[Amjad Awan]] and had conducted no independent searches for documents in response to the 1988 subpoena.[^3]
A memorandum by [[Roma Theus]], a partner in the Florida firm of [[Holland & Knight]], stated that Altman and Banoun "were doing everything within their power to call in political markers." Banoun called its author a misinformed "fruitcake." Theus told the subcommittee that his information came from the private investigator [[Phillip Manuel]], who had worked for Barcella; Manuel told the subcommittee he had no idea why Theus would write such a thing and that his only information about the investigation came from "journalists with who [sic] he played poker."[^2]
In the fall of 1988 Banoun was also charged with reviewing all of BCCI's accounts in Florida to decide whether criminal referrals should be made. According to the report, documents suggested "that despite evidence of criminal activity produced by the manager of one of BCCI Florida offices (one of BCCI's few honest officers) Banoun made no criminal referrals."[^2]
### The Florida License and the Senate
After the United States Attorney in Tampa, [[Robert Genzman]], told Florida regulators on January 31, 1990, that his office took no position on BCCI's state license, "BCCI's lawyers, principally former federal prosecutors Lawrence Wechsler, Lawrence Barcella, and Raymond Banoun, dissatisfied with this result, decided to talk to others in the Justice Department to bring about a different result." On February 13, 1990, [[Charles Saphos]], head of the narcotics section of the Criminal Division, wrote to the Florida comptroller, [[Gerald Lewis]], asking that BCCI be permitted to keep operating, and sent copies to the Federal Reserve "and to BCCI lawyers Banoun and Wechsler." When Lewis invited him to Tallahassee to explain, Saphos wrote back that the Department of Justice took no position on the license.[^4]
According to the report, documents showed that Wechsler "and Banoun lobbied the US Senate on behalf of BCCI," and John Culver, a former senator and another Arent Fox partner, lobbied the subcommittee "with Banoun, Weschler and Altman, assuring Subccommittee staff that the bank was fully cooperating, and that, save events in Florida, a sound and honorable institution." In the spring of 1990 Banoun called in his Arent Fox colleague Michael Barnes, a former congressman from [[Maryland]], over a pending article on [[First American Bank]] by the journalist [[Larry Gurwin]] for *Regardie's* magazine; Barnes called the publisher, William A. Regardie, to complain, and the magazine published the article.[^2]
### Later Career
At the time of the Senate report in December 1992 Banoun headed the white collar criminal defense group in the Washington office of [[Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft]], which the report rendered as "Caldawater, Wickersham and Taft."[^2] He was a partner at Cadwalader for 25 years, founded its White Collar Group, and was managing partner of its Washington office for ten years, before establishing [[Banoun Law]] PLLC. He has chaired the [[American Bar Association]] Criminal Justice Section's White Collar Crime Committee and the Business Crimes Committee of the [[International Bar Association]]'s Section of Business Law, founded the ABA's annual National Institute on White Collar Crime, and co-authored the treatise *Money Laundering, Terrorism and Financial Institutions*. His practice covers the [[Foreign Corrupt Practices Act]], money laundering and asset forfeiture, and foreign bank secrecy in jurisdictions including [[Switzerland]], [[Luxembourg]], [[Hong Kong]], [[Bermuda]], the [[Cayman Islands]], the [[Bahamas]] and [[Panama]]. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: "Raymond Banoun," Banoun Law LLC. https://sites.google.com/site/banounlaw
[^2]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 17, "BCCI's Lawyers and Lobbyists," section "Ray Banoun." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/17law.htm
[^3]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 13, "Clark Clifford and Robert Altman." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/13clifford.htm
[^4]: Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. *The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.* December 1992, ch. 8, "BCCI and Law Enforcement: The Justice Department and the U.S. Customs Service." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/08just.htm