Right - it's probably very relevant to discussions of, say, Google's AI council that Google's purpose in putting Kay Coles James on their board was not that the Heritage Foundation's views per se should be represented (note that they didn't do corresponding representation of other political factions) but that she and the foundation have significant legitimacy and influence with the politically powerful parts of the American right wing, with which Google is generally in political trouble, and therefore it was a good way to allow Google to execute on its AI-related goals and therefore make money without political backlash.

A genuine ethics board would not include people whose real job is to curry favor with government - it's sufficiently close to unethical that it's a bad way to get started - and would be generally fine with saying "This task is ethically permissible, but not an ethical imperative, and so if it's politically difficult to do it, we should just do other things."