CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Study documents how profitable access to Obama’s White House was.

On April 12, 2017, former Boeing CEO Jim McNerney sat down in the West Wing with President Trump. Trump had, on the campaign trail, advocated abolishing the Export-Import Bank, a federal agency that typically subsidizes $10 billion a year in Boeing exports.

On April 13, Trump announced he would fill out Ex-Im’s board of directors, thus reviving the agency’s ability to subsidize Boeing’s overseas customers.

This was a replay from eight years earlier.

Candidate Barack Obama had called Ex-Im “little more than a slush fund for corporate welfare.” Obama soon picked McNerney and General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt as his manufacturing czar and jobs czar, respectively. GE is arguably Ex-Im’s No. 2 beneficiary. Obama quickly came around on the agency, and became Ex-Im’s most important ally in Washington. . . .

The researchers found two notable things about the companies that made up these 2,286 meetings: That money helped the executives get in the door, and getting in the door helped them make money.

It’s the Chicago Way.