House oversight committee Republicans are again seeking information from the Biden administration about staff members who hold millions of dollars worth of student loans.
The group, led by Reps. James Comer (R-KY), the ranking member on the Committee on Oversight and Reform, and Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the ranking member on the Committee on Education and Labor, has been seeking information on which staffers have loans and whether or not they received ethics waivers in order to work on the White House’s $500 billion student debt bailout.
BIDEN’S CLOSE TIES TO HIGHER EDUCATION SCRUTINIZED AFTER STUDENT LOAN BAILOUT
“We are investigating whether Biden Administration officials who worked on the student loan bailout will personally benefit from this financial windfall,” the letter, which was sent to White House counsel Stuart Delery, said. “It is unethical for public officials to craft policies from which they stand to benefit financially.”
The letter requests information on whether Biden administration political appointees have conflicts of interest and whether they or their families would benefit from the bailout. Bloomberg reported in May that 30 top Biden aides hold as much as $4.7 million in student loans. Many lower-level staffers didn’t have to report, nor did those owing less than $10,000, meaning the grand total is likely to be higher.
To be eligible for Biden’s $10,000-per-borrower cancellation program, recipients will need to earn under $125,000 individually or $250,000 as a household, and those who received a Pell Grant can get up to $20,000 canceled. Biden administration staffers are not exempt.
Foxx and Comer previously wrote to the Office of Government Ethics in June raising ethical questions about the potential conflicts of interest.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the White House for comment.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about the letter during Thursday’s press briefing. She said she had not seen it and did not answer the question directly.
“This is going to give a huge relief to so many Americans, who are now maybe going to be able to put money down on a house, who are going to be maybe able to start a family,” she said. “Ninety percent of the money will go to people who make $75,000 a year and under.”
“Does the White House think that aides who worked on it were biased in any way if they themselves had student debt?” a reporter asked, pressing the issue a second time.
“Again, I’m not going to respond to a letter that I haven’t seen,” Jean-Pierre said.
REPUBLICANS CRY FOUL OVER WHITE HOUSE STAFFERS WITH MILLIONS IN STUDENT LOANS
The loans program has been estimated to cost $2,000 per taxpayer, with people who either didn’t go to college, went without loans, or paid off their loans picking up the tab for those with loan balances.
“We are concerned that political officials may have committed serious ethics violations if they provided advice and counsel or drafted the bailout scheme from which they financially benefited,” the letter reads.
Comer and Foxx are seeking a list of all Biden administration employees who worked on the loan forgiveness policy, all documents and communications indicating whether those employees have debt that would be affected by it, copies of any ethics waivers sought or granted, and a signed copy of all ethics pledges pertaining to them.
Biden has denied personal knowledge of whether or not his staff members have loans.
White House Office of Government Ethics Director Emory Rounds responded to an earlier letter from Foxx and Comer by saying that the office “generally does not directly advise, counsel, monitor, or maintain the records for the millions of executive branch employees,” which means any ethics waivers were “not available from a single source.”
Rounds also wrote that his office does not have access to documents about which employees work on which administration policies.
According to Bloomberg, nearly 20% of all aides required to file disclosures reported holding student loans, which totaled between $2 million and $4.7 million collectively. One staffer reported owing between $500,000 and $1 million.
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White House staffers earned an average salary of $95,649 in 2021, well above the national average but below the $125,000 income cutoff to qualify for the student debt program.
