Financial Disclosure Shows Rahm Emanuel Keeps Failing Up

CHICAGO — It’s no secret that public service helped make former Mayor Rahm Emanuel a very rich man.

He made millions as an investment banker after leaving the White House, got a pretty decent buck as a consultant and even picked up a $77,000 advance for writing a revisionist history book, according to his personal financial disclosure statement submitted in April before Emanuel got tapped by President Joe Biden to serve as U.S. ambassador to Japan.

Tucked into that disclosure is an interesting Emanuel side gig connected to his tenure as mayor and his influence in the Biden administration that didn’t get as much attention in national news stories about his personal finances as the $300,000 he got paid as an ABC News political talking head.

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But, to me, Rahm’s gig at GoHealth — a firm that was part of his first-term “signature initiative” called Skills for Chicagoland’s Future — is another example of why America doesn’t need the help of a political alchemist who transforms his public-policy advocacy into big-time paychecks.

GoHealth makes money by using propriety software to funnel customers to health insurance companies. And one of the most significant threats to the company’s business is government-sponsored health insurance programs such as “Medicare for All,” according to public records.

In 2013, Emanuel praised GoHealth at a mayoral news conference for being “uniquely positioned as a leader of a fluid, changing market and is well-poised to continue its success in the city.”

In February 2020, Chicago’s former mayor joined GoHealth as an “independent manager” on the publicly traded firm's board of directors.

That was about four months after Emanuel — who had been quietly advising Biden’s successful presidential campaign while pimping his opinions ABC News — penned a Washington Post op-ed titled “Someone needs to say it: Medicare-for-all is a pipe dream.”

He received $150,431 in “director fees, along with stock valued between $265,00 and $550,000, according to the disclosure statement filed in April.

Over 11 months in 2020 — a pandemic-plagued year that included millions of Americans losing health insurance benefits — Emanuel’s total compensation from GoHealth was $763,514, according to public records. And in May, Emanuel scored another 11,905 shares of stock.

The connection between Emanuel’s mayoral agenda and “what’s best for America” punditry to his for-profit “consulting” and voice on corporate boards is a detail that major news outlets gloss over as if it’s not indicative of a troubling pattern found in how Emanuel operates.

Rahm isn’t just a failed mayor whose administration covered up video of a Black teenager murdered by a Chicago cop until his hotly contested re-election bid ended in victory.

He's also the former mayor who scored a job as a senior advisor to Dedrone Holdings, a San Francisco-based company which peddles drone detection systems to airports including — you guessed it — O'Hare.

On April 1, Dedrone hosted an online chat featuring a love-fest with Chicago aviation department projects chief Raimond Ranne – a former police officer hired during Emanuel's tenure — for his work on the city's drone detection concept of operation application with the FAA.

On Wednesday, a city spokesperson told Patch the aviation department has already purchased three Dedrone sensors through a "city-wide contract" and those devices have been strategically placed throughout the O'Hare International Airport environment to gather data on drones.

Emanuel, as Dedrone's advisor, was compensated with a “Nonstatutory Stock Option Agreement” that states “unvested options will vest upon separation, pursuant to a ‘public service’ provision,” according to the financial disclosure document.

Chicago's former mayor was given 50,000 shares of stock that aren't worth much now but could become more valuable if Dedrone scored a contract to outfit Midway and O'Hare, two of the busiest airports in America, with their drone-detecting systems and products.

That's an end game that could take years. But that won't hurt Emanuel’s pocketbook. His financial disclosure statement indicates that he will retain the stock even if he is confirmed as the ambassador to Japan.

Of course, he is. History tells us it always pays to be Rahm Emanuel.

And let's not forget Emanuel's track-record for being a know-it-all power broker and bully who pushes policies that leave behind a wake of failures and racial and class inequities.

It’s always worth repeating that Emanuel was the co-architect of the "three strikes” crime bill that lead to the mass incarceration of African Americans, the North American Free Trade Agreement that sent American jobs across borders, and so-called welfare reform that made extreme poverty worse.

When news broke that the 2020 census showed that Chicago’s population grew slightly, even though Black residents fled the city, Emanuel quickly bragged the population count “bears out” the success of his strategy to turn around the city.

Really? For whom?

Certainly not for Chicagoans living in poor, minority neighborhoods plagued by crime in the heart of food and medical and mental health deserts.

But do you know who loves Rahm?

America’s elite and corporations, such as GoHealth, who hired Emanuel citing his “financial expertise and many years of leadership experience.” Those included the former mayor’s 13-month stint on the board of directors of Freddie Mac starting in 2000 during a scandal that some economists cite as the beginning of the country’s economic meltdown; and his time on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange board of directors, which later kicked in more than $270,000 to his campaign fund.

Like some of Rahm’s previous public and private jobs, he exited GoHealth with more money in his pocket and left with his employer in worse shape than when he arrived.

GoHealth went public in July 2020 with $21.30 per share stock price and an initial public offering that raised an “blockbuster” $914 million that so far hasn’t paid off for investors.

On Aug. 27, GoHealth’s stock price was $4.76, and had a net income of negative $44.4 million over the last four quarters.

Emanuel resigned his seat on the GoHealth board three days later in preparation to represent the U.S. in Japan if he gets the U.S. Senate’s blessing.

The guy keeps failing up.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docuseries on CNN and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary "16 Shots."

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