In the past few weeks, agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue has moved to change school lunches, issued a “religious liberty” order and tried to reassure America’s farmers about U.S. trade policy.
With such ambitious goals, he’s going to need a lot of help, perhaps that’s why he’s appointing two of his known business associates to the USDA.
After Perdue was appointed by Trump, Politico launched an investigation into Perdue’s list of appointments while governor. The investigation, “found more than a dozen instances when he gave positions to business associates and campaign donors, and other occasions when he rewarded his state staff with opportunities in his agriculture and shipping empire after he left office.”
This being said, it won’t be a surprise that he’s already brought back two staffers from his gubernatorial days. The former staffers, Heidi Green and Chris Young, are now USDA Chief of Staff and USDA Deputy of Staff, respectively.
Heidi Green, in addition to being a partner in Perdue’s Partners, Perdue’s shipping business, also worked for Perdue while he was governor. In 2008, she helped arrange a meeting between the president of one of Perdue’s grain companies and state development and agriculture officials, leveraging Perdue’s political power for fiscal gain, saying “FYI…this is the Gov’s company,” in an email. She was the second highest-ranking economic development officer at the time.
Perdue knows he can trust Green to carry out his dirty work as agriculture secretary because she did it when he was governor.
Less is known about the other Georgia native in Perdue’s inner circle, Chris Young. Young served as Perdue’s director of International Affairs and was reappointed by current Ga. governor, Nathan Deal. Young was the first person to ever hold this position, according to information from his LinkedIn account.
Agriculture Secretary and former Governor Sonny Perdue has a history of using his political power for personal profit. We have to keep the spotlight on him.
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