Quote:While President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris push their climate agenda, their effort to drum up support for electric vehicles has raised ethical questions vis-à-vis Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, who holds millions of dollars in vested stock options in Proterra, the leading U.S. manufacturer of electric buses and the manufacturer of a myriad of products related to electric vehicles.

On April 20, Biden took a virtual tour of Proterra, where Granholm had served on the board. He told Proterra’s CEO, Jack Allen, “Chairman, let me say something quickly to you. The fact is you’re making me look good. I used to have a friend that said it’s always great to do well and do good — you’re doing both pal. You really are.”

“Despite the hundreds of electric vehicle-related companies in the United States, Harris also toured a partner of Proterra, and the Proterra’s CEO Jack Allen later took part in a session at the administration’s U.S. Climate summit,” CNN reported.

Jonathan Macey, a professor of corporate law, securities law and finance at the Yale Law School, said of the value of Biden’s visit, “That’s like money in the bank.” Proterra is scheduled to go public in the near future.

Granholm claimed she “had nothing to do with” Biden’s tour while pledging to divest her stock options, reiterating her promise from February, when she was confirmed as Energy Secretary.

In late April, Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, sent a letter to the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in which he wrote:

In connection with her nomination hearing, I asked Secretary Granholm the following question for the record: “With respect to your affiliation with and financial interest in Proterra Inc., please confirm in narrative form the practical limitations that the Committee can expect your ethics agreement to impose upon you, especially as those limitations may bear on DOE’s programs that promote or otherwise impact or potentially impact electric transportation, including, for example, the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) Program. … Should I infer, that you will recuse yourself as appropriate from matters involving electric transportation at least until such time as you divest your interests in Proterra?”

Granholm had answered, “If confirmed, I will recuse myself from all particular matters that to my knowledge have a direct and predictable effect on the financial interests of Proterra until I have completed the divestiture.”

Barasso continued:

I am concerned that activities Secretary Granholm may have been directly or indirectly engaged in within the Biden Administration to promote electric vehicles (including electric buses), batteries, and charging infrastructure may have violated general commitments she made during her nomination process and as she entered the Biden Administration “to avoid any actual or apparent conflict of interest;” to “avoid any actions creating the appearance of violating the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch;” and to conduct “decision-making on the merits and exclusively in the public interest, without regard to private gain or personal benefit.”

“Given that status, the up to $5 million in value of investment that Secretary Granholm continues to hold in Proterra, Inc. is positioned to increase in light of her personal and substantial involvement in an aggressive, wide-ranging and tireless public relations campaign to promote electric vehicles, batteries and charging infrastructure; her leadership in promoting President Biden’s American Jobs Plan, including its proposal to spend $174 billion ‘to win the EV market,'” Barrasso wrote.

“Secretary Granholm has acted in full accordance with the comprehensive ethical standards set by the Biden administration,” an Energy Department spokesperson responded to CNN. “She is in the process of divesting all holdings in the company within the 180-day period permitted by her ethics agreement.”

CNN noted, “Granholm soon stands to see a substantial payday as Proterra is scheduled to go public in the first half of 2021, according to a company statement. In her ethics agreement, the former governor pledged to divest her Proterra stock options “as practicable but not later than 180 days after” her February confirmation — a timeline that falls within the 180 days.”

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Quote:If you are someone who has paid attention to politics over the last decade, you understand the disparate treatment different administrations get when it comes to scandalous activity. In regards to Barack Obama, he literally had his appointees out lying about a terrorist attack that killed four Americans, and the media still claim to this day that his biggest scandal was wearing a tan suit.

When it came to Donald Trump, him receiving two scoops of ice cream became a bigger story than Obama’s targeting of conservatives via the IRS. At one point, Ivanka Trump said something nice about Goya Foods, and the news industry lost its minds claiming she had violated ethics rules.

That’s relevant because it’s in stark contrast to how a major, brewing scandal is being treated in relation to the Biden administration. As RedState reported weeks ago, there are serious issues surrounding millions of dollars in stock owned by Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. That stock is in Proterra, an electric vehicle company that is being actively promoted by the Biden administration. Further, Granholm being the Secretary of Energy means she gets to make regulations that can directly enrich herself.

Now, the story has gotten worse as Granholm appears to have reneged completely on her pledge to sell her stock and leave the board of the company in question.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ efforts to sell their green agenda and infrastructure plan are being complicated by a thorny conflict of interest for Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm — who stands to gain a windfall from stock options in a private electric vehicle company.

Last month, Biden took a virtual tour of Proterra, a company Granholm holds millions of dollars in vested stock options in and previously sat on the board of. During the tour Biden praised employees and the CEO for their work in the electric vehicle space.

“Chairman, let me say something quickly to you. The fact is you’re making me look good,” Biden told the company’s head executive, before pledging to come back in person at a later date. “I used to have a friend that said it’s always great to do well and do good — you’re doing both pal. You really are.”

It doesn’t take much of an imagination to speculate on how this level of scandal would be treated in the news media had it involved Donald Trump. It would be the subject of months of negative coverage, and calls for criminal charges would likely be included. Certainly, all the government ethics offices would be going nuts. They seem largely uninterested in much of anything since Biden took office, though.

Granholm being in her role at all while owning this stock is scandal enough. She is pushing an “infrastructure” plan that seeks to transfer the government’s gas-burning vehicle fleet to electric cars, trucks, and buses. If that happens, she makes millions.

This is the kind of swampy activity that got Trump elected in the first place. Washington D.C. is back open for business, and the usual suspects are benefiting. This is exactly why the fight against the former president was so vicious. It wasn’t just that they hated his personality and his tweets. He also represented a clear threat to them financially.

All the major networks should be blasting the Biden administration over this, not just via obscure internet mentions, but on their primetime programs. The Government Accountability Office should be losing its collective mind as well. None of that is happening, though, because Democrats always get a pass. We’ll keep reporting the news that makes them squirm anyway.

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Now this is one of those where.. it's a double edged sword and where do you draw the line to say who should/shouldn't be allowed to invest in stock PREVIOUSLY

I get the obvious concerns about the 'plus' that granholm is going to get if stock prices move up...

However, do you punish her for having stock previously in a company, (even one like this) if Biden says something. In that case, nobody who ever tries to get in to a business should ever run for political positioning?

Now the part about not selling her stock and removing herself from the Board... that is a decent enough start of a siren, however.