Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Barton, I'm going to give you one more chance to shed some light with respect to my previous questions about your engagement with McKinsey while you were the ambassador to China.
You told the operations committee regarding that engagement that it was “excommunicado”, but Zak Cutler at McKinsey knew details of your schedule, was discussing them with Annie Ropar at the Infrastructure Bank and was convening a meeting involving you, McKinsey and the Infrastructure Bank. The emails prove that McKinsey was intimately involved, which clearly contradicts your earlier testimony.
This is important, because McKinsey's special access to government allowed it to massively increase its take of taxpayers' money, and your presence helped make that happen. You may not have been selling directly, but your presence helped McKinsey facilitate these sales before and after you were ambassador. You were, by all indications, fine with that.
Given that McKinsey was convening meetings with you, are you prepared to acknowledge that your relationship with McKinsey after you received the appointment as ambassador was not, as you had previously described, excommunicado?