High-profile Dem lobbyist joins board of former Blackwater company

Jack Quinn, co-founder and chairman of Quinn Gillespie & Associates, has joined the board of directors for the company formerly known as Blackwater.

Quinn will be an independent director for Xe Services, the private security contractor, according to a press release Tuesday from USTC Holdings, the investor group that bought the company last year. Quinn served as White House counsel for former President Clinton and also served as chief of staff to Clinton's vice president, Al Gore.

"Over the years, Jack has demonstrated a commitment to the highest ethical standards of conduct in both the public and private sectors. With the formation of the Board of Directors complete, we will, with the Board’s direction, continue to set the bar for industry standards against which all other companies are measured," said Jason DeYonker, on behalf of the ownership group, in a statement.

"I am proud to join and help lead Xe at a time when the valuable services it provides are most needed by our country," Quinn said in a statement. "The men and women of the company demonstrate their dedication, professionalism and best-in-class service each and every day, and I am honored to support the critical mission they serve."

In May, John Ashcroft, who served as attorney general during the George W. Bush administration, was picked by Xe to lead the company’s new subcommittee on governance, which focuses on promoting ethics and professionalism at the company. 

Blackwater has run into controversy in the past; several of its guards were involved in a 2007 Baghdad shooting that killed 17 people, and two former Blackwater contractors earned prison time last month for their roles in a May 2009 deadly shooting in Kabul, Afghanistan.

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