President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son after repeatedly stating he would not is one of many broken promises from his administration.
On day one, Biden’s former press secretary Jen Psaki promised the administration would “bring transparency and truth back to the government.” Yet government watchdog complaints and congressional inquiries into executive agencies document how the past four years have been characterized by the opposite.
“The pardon is only the most recent of the egregious examples of the president’s pattern of not delivering on promises – especially ethical promises,” Protect the Public’s Trust director Michael Chamberlain told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Many of us remember the promises to be the most ethical administration in history. The reality of this administration and its top officials has been quite different.”
Ethics Takes The ‘Back Seat’
Psaki said in January 2021 that Biden is “committed to ensuring we have the most ethically vigorous administration in history,” yet a recent PPT report documents how agencies have faced serious ethics concerns on his watch. Psaki herself was subject to an ethics complaint when she continued fielding questions at the White House while negotiating for a job with MSNBC in 2022.
Deborah Haaland, secretary of the Interior, faced questions from congressional leaders over her involvement with and potential “misuse of her position” to benefit the anti-fossil fuel group Pueblo Action Alliance (PAA), an organization where her daughter works. After Haaland participated in a film produced by PAA, DOI ethics officials contacted the film’s sponsors to remove her title and photo from the promotional material, according to documents obtained by PPT.
Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) Assistant Administrator Joseph Goffman faced several complaints from PPT for arranging meetings with representatives from his former employer and over 80 financial holdings requiring his recusal from matters involving the same interests. In a 71-page September report, the EPA Inspector General found Goffman “failed” to meet ethical obligations regarding potential financial conflicts of interest.
At the State Department, former Special Climate Envoy John Kerry misrepresented scientific evidence by claiming greenhouse gasses kill 15 million annually in a May 2023 speech, according to a complaint filed by PPT. Kerry also attracted congressional scrutiny over the suspected influence of outside environmental groups on his office.
“From Karine Jean-Pierre’s multiple Hatch Act violations to BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning’s apparent false statements to the Senate during her confirmation hearing to Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine making unequivocal statements about gender transition treatments for minors with virtually no scientific backing, it is clear that, as a Department of Energy spokesperson implied, ethics and keeping promises have taken the back seat,” Chamberlain told the DCNF.
‘Never Have Smoking Guns’
During COVID-19, senior officials in former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease director Dr. Anthony Fauci’s office used “deceptive tactics” like intentional misspelling of key words to avoid their email communications showing up in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, according to a December report by the House Oversight Committee.
“We are all smart enough to know to never have smoking guns, and if we did we wouldn’t put them in emails and if we found them we’d delete them,” David Morens, former senior advisor to Fauci, wrote in a 2020 email released by the committee in May.
Meanwhile, White House officials pressured social media platforms to restrict disfavored content and to censor specific individuals over vaccine-related posts.
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) likewise flagged posts for platforms to remove, while the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) engaged in “switchboarding,” sending posts deemed misinformation by local election officials to social media companies.
Biden also went back on his promise not to impose a federal vaccine mandate.
Access For Activists
Activist groups quietly influenced administration policy and received government support across multiple agencies.
Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) directed millions from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to left-wing activist groups, according to a House Energy and Commerce Committee report.
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine pressured the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) to remove minimum age recommendations from its guidelines.
When the HHS’ Administration for Children and Families (ACF) was developing its rule directing LGBTQ-identifying foster children to be placed homes that support their identity, officials consulted with social workers and activists who spent years testing a program that strong-arms parents into affirming their child’s gender confusion, documents obtained by the DCNF previously reported.
Biden’s Mental State
For over a year, White House staff worked to conceal signs of Biden’s mental decline by tightly managing his schedule, the Wall Street Journal reported in July. Talking about lapses was a “no-go zone,” one former official told the Washington Post in July.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) denied FOIA requests seeking audio recordings from former special counsel Robert Hur’s interview with Biden after Hur wrote in his report that Biden’s memory was “significantly limited.” Biden invoked executive privilege to block the tapes’ release in May.
Hur’s February report focused on Biden’s handling of classified documents. Biden’s attorneys claimed to discover the documents at the Penn Biden Center in Nov. 2022, though House Oversight Chair James Comer noted the timeline began over a year before the midterm election, when White House employees were sent to retrieve boxes of material from the center.
After Biden’s disastrous debate performance unleashed Democrats’ concern about his mental fitness, Biden pulled out of the presidential race without offering a real explanation, while Vice President Kamala Harris evaded questions about her knowledge of his state.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre continued to affirm that Biden was “sharp as ever” after the debate, calling concerns that he could not finish out his term “ridiculous.” Prior to the debate, the White House spun videos of Biden appearing to wander away or freeze as “cheap-fakes.”
Featured Image Credit: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America
