Robert Rubin Joins Citigroup for $126 Million After Engineering Glass-Steagall Repeal

Robert Rubin joins Citigroup just four months after leaving his position as Treasury Secretary, shortly after the November 1999 passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that repealed Glass-Steagall. Rubin’s move to Citigroup - the principal beneficiary of Glass-Steagall repeal - represents one of the most brazen examples of the Wall Street-Washington revolving door in modern American history.

As Treasury Secretary from 1995-1999, Rubin had actively supported the dismantling of Glass-Steagall and opposed derivatives regulation. In September 1998, the Federal Reserve granted Citigroup (formed from the illegal Citicorp-Travelers merger) a temporary waiver to operate in violation of Glass-Steagall, with the explicit expectation that Congress would change the law. Rubin left Treasury in July 1999, and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act passed in November 1999, retroactively legalizing Citigroup’s structure.

Between 1999 and 2009, Rubin would receive total compensation of $126 million from Citigroup, despite the bank requiring massive government bailouts during the 2008 financial crisis. Rubin’s trajectory - Goldman Sachs (26 years) to National Economic Council to Treasury to Citigroup - “institutionalized and epitomized the revolving door from Wall Street to Washington and back again.” His appointment to Citigroup just months after engineering the regulatory changes that made the bank’s business model legal revealed the fundamental corruption of financial deregulation: officials who dismantled safeguards were immediately rewarded with lucrative positions at the firms that benefited most.