By Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm has been under fire for years over her “ethical lapses.” Last summer, for example, a watchdog group called for her resignation after it appeared that she profited from her position and held stock in companies that the Department of Energy has direct influence over.
On Tuesday, however, things went bad to worse for the former Democratic governor of Michigan as she testified in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Republican Senator Josh Hawley, from Missouri, demanded she come clean after a heated exchange over her financial transactions and accused her of committing perjury before Congress.
Fox News wrote that The Missouri Republican excoriated the energy secretary for violating the STOCK Act and for continuing to own shares of individual companies last year despite testifying that she did not own any individual stock.
“It is outrageous that you misled us. It is outrageous that you are continuing to mislead us,” Hawley remarked. “This has got to change. And, frankly, you should go.”
Early in her tenure leading the Department of Energy, it was revealed that Granholm violated the STOCK Act nine times by failing to disclose $240,000 worth of stock sales within the legally-mandated timeframe.
In addition, the GOP lawmaker also blasted Granholm for allowing agency employees to own individual stocks. Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported that hundreds of senior DOE officials own stocks related to the agency’s work, a potential conflict-of-interest violation.
He said that senior DOE officials owning stocks reveals the “institutionalized corruption in the Department of Energy.”
MUST WATCH: Sen. @HawleyMO blasts a flustered Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm over failing to disclose owning conflicting stocks. pic.twitter.com/Md0JVc8LNJ
— Conservative War Machine (@WarMachineRR) April 16, 2024
Granholm might be one of the more corrupt Biden officials. In February 2023, New Conservative Post noted that an electric bus company named Proterra had received a prestigious position on Joe Biden’s Export Council.
In a statement, the CEO said, “Accelerating a clean transportation future is an obligation we have to future generations and an opportunity for the United States to be at the forefront of the innovations that will drive the 21st century,” said Proterra CEO Gareth Joyce. “I’m honored to represent the electric vehicle and battery manufacturing industry on the President’s Export Council and look forward to working with the PEC to help advance our country’s global leadership in this critical and emerging sector.”
During a “virtual tour” early in his presidency, President Biden pointed to Proterra and the money Democrats dumped into it, as key to the United States “owning the future.”
The move made Granholm rich. She held hundreds of thousands of shares in the EV company. A few months after the president’s speech, the secretary sold her stake for a cool $1.6 million dollars, citing an ethics agreement.
The timing couldn’t have been better. The company has now declared bankruptcy.
Granholm has not merely been accused of using her position for financial gain, she’s also been using her position as a cabinet official to campaign on behalf of Democrats, a clear violation of The Hatch Act.
The Hill reported in 2022 that “a government watchdog has found that Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm violated the Hatch Act after she made comments in support of the Democratic Party, but let her off with a warning because she had not received proper training.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC), an independent government agency, dinged Granholm over comments she made during an interview with the magazine Marie Claire.”
‘The good news is that that marching and that voting gave Democrats a bare majority, but a majority, in the House, in the Senate,’ Granholm said during a live interview on Instagram, according to a letter sent to the complainant.
‘And again, I am using Democrats as a substitute for the policies that you believe in, the policies that you would like to see happen,’ Granholm continued.”
The OSC responded to the complaint in a typical Biden administration way: there are rules for Democrats and there are rules for everyone else. The agency said that Granholm’s comments did indeed violate the Hatch Act, but she would still not face charges.
The agency wrote, “Although OSC concluded Secretary Granholm violated the Hatch Act, the evidence gathered during our investigation does not support the conclusion that it was a knowing violation. Specifically, OSC learned that, before the interview, she had not received significant training about the Hatch Act’s use of official authority prohibition. But we understand that since the Marie Claire interview, Secretary Granholm has received comprehensive Hatch Act training covering, among other things, the use of official authority prohibition.
Accordingly, we are closing our file in this matter with the issuance of a warning letter to Secretary Granholm.”
Hawley has called for the secretary’s resignation.
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