President Joe Biden pledged to lead “the most ethically rigorous administration in history,” but his administration has excused top officials from federal ethics regulations at a far greater rate than his immediate predecessor, a watchdog group reported Wednesday.
Biden’s ethics pledge and federal ethics laws prohibit officials from engaging in matters involving their former employers for at least one year after being sworn in, but those regulations can be waived if the interests of the federal government outweigh possible ethical concerns. Biden’s administration has granted at least 50 such waivers during his first 14 months in office, compared to the 73 ethics waivers granted during the first 32 months of the Trump administration, according to the report by Protect the Public’s Trust.
“At the pace it set during its first 14 months, the Biden administration would far exceed the number of waivers and decisions awarded during the Trump administration,” PPT Director Michael Chamberlain told the Washington Examiner. “These are also spread out much more widely among agencies, meaning more of the people making the decisions that affect the American public are being given hall passes on their ethics obligations.”
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The terms of at least 19 ethics waivers granted to Biden administration officials have not been made public, according to a tracker run by Chamberlain’s group. While the existence of the waivers has been disclosed in other records, many federal agencies have not provided the waivers themselves in response to PPT’s Freedom of Information Act requests, Chamberlain said.
Among the recipients of such “secret” waivers include Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, who disclosed in her Certification of Ethics Agreement Compliance that she received authorization to be involved in matters involving CNN and the University of California, but the terms of that authorization have not been disclosed, according to PPT.
Granholm has been the target of numerous ethics complaints during her time in office.
The energy secretary came under fire in May for selling her stock in the electric vehicle manufacturer Proterra, which she served on the board of prior to joining the Biden administration, for a $1.6 million profit. Granholm reported the sale one month after Biden promoted Proterra during a virtual tour of the company’s South Carolina manufacturing facility.
Granholm has recently pitched electric vehicles, which cost $56,000 on average, as a way for regular people to sidestep rising gas prices.
An Energy Department spokeswoman told the Washington Free Beacon in February that Granholm was too busy dealing with global warming and the “impact of extreme weather events” to concern herself about ethics issues after she paid a $400 fee for failing to disclose her stock sales in December within the required 45-day time period.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has also promoted electric vehicles amid rising gas prices, is another recipient of a “secret” waiver, according to PPT’s waiver tracker. Buttigieg disclosed in his Certification of Ethics Compliance Tracker that he received authorization to be involved in matters involving iHeartMedia + Entertainment, Inc., but the terms of that authorization have not been disclosed.
Chamberlain said his organization filed a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services to disclose the “hidden” ethics waiver for Secretary Xavier Becerra and at least three other HHS officials with known waivers. Chamberlain added that more lawsuits are on the way.
Some ethics watchdogs have given the Biden administration a pass for giving out waivers to senior officials.
Former Director of the Office of Government Ethics Walter Shaub, who served during the Obama administration, told Government Executive in May that “not all ethics waivers are bad,” noting that many Biden administration waivers are granted to officials who used to work for for-profit businesses.
“Some have complained that they may share their former nonprofit employers’ views on issues, but the ethics restriction was never intended to regulate thought; it was intended to prevent an unfair competitive advantage in business,” Shaub said.
But some Biden ethics waivers have drawn bipartisan criticism.
Most recently, the Project on Government Oversight called on the Biden administration in February for U.S. Digital Service Administrator Mina Hsiang, who was authorized to keep and profit from significant investments in technology companies in what the watchdog group said raise serious concerns of a conflict of interest.
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Shaub said he was alarmed by the sheer size of Hsiang’s waiver, saying it “literally puts them above the law.”
