Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm pressured to resign over ‘repeated ethical lapses’
Gabe Kaminsky
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Over a dozen conservative groups are demanding that Jennifer Granholm resign over her “repeated ethical lapses” as energy secretary under President Joe Biden.
Granholm has faced significant scrutiny since assuming office in 2021 as the top official in the Energy Department from Republicans, who have alleged the former Democratic Michigan governor has failed to follow federal laws surrounding ethics. A coalition of right-leaning organizations wrote a five-page letter to Biden on Tuesday that alleged Granholm has “disregarded and de-prioritized her ethics obligations at every turn,” citing a handful of examples, and requested the secretary’s “immediate resignation.”
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“Since Ms. Granholm’s responses to these allegations have often relied on some variation of ‘it wasn’t my fault,’ this has left the American public wondering where exactly the buck stops in your administration,” the groups, which included the conservative media watchdog Media Research Center, the Heartland Institute think tank, the Energy and Environment Legal Institute, and the ethics watchdogs Protect the Public’s Trust and American Accountability Foundation, wrote in the letter.
“Since you took office, your administration has continually touted its commitment to ethics, with former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, for instance, declaring that you are ‘committed to ensuring we have the most ethically vigorous administration in history,'” the letter continued. “The current moment presents an opportunity to demonstrate to the American public that such pronouncements have meaning and do not merely pay lip-service to a very important aspect of your leadership tenure.”
The written request to Biden for Granholm’s resignation comes over one month after the secretary faced an ethics complaint from Protect the Public’s Trust over “conflict of interest” concerns stemming from her June admission to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that her husband, David Mulhern, held Ford Motor Company stock despite the Biden administration approving electric vehicle subsidies that will likely benefit the company.
Granholm had alleged to the Senate panel that she never disclosed the Ford shares on financial disclosures because the secretary learned of their existence on May 13. The shares were valued at more than $2,400 and sold on May 15, according to a letter she wrote to the committee. Separately, Granholm said at the time that she “mistakenly” testified in April that she “did not own any individual stocks” despite the secretary apparently meaning to put forth that she “did not own any conflicting stocks.”
The coalition letter from the conservative groups cited the Ford stock matter while also pointing to how Granholm, before being confirmed in 2021, sat on the board of Proterra, an electric bus maker that filed for bankruptcy last week. Granholm in May 2021 sold 240,000 shares in Proterra for $1.6 million after Republicans and watchdogs raised conflict of interest concerns, particularly since the Biden administration, and also the Energy Department, appeared at events to boost Proterra and then delivered major EV subsidies.
Moreover, the conservatives cited how Granholm was found by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, a federal investigative and prosecutorial agency, to have violated the Hatch Act, which bars federal employees from engaging in certain political activity, when she appeared to endorse Democratic candidates in a 2021 interview. The Office of Special Counsel, however, didn’t take any disciplinary action due to Granholm not receiving “significant” training related to the Hatch Act, documents showed.
“Secretary Granholm’s apparently lax ethical standards appear to extend beyond her to others in the department she oversees,” the groups wrote in the letter, pointing out how the Energy Department previously took to describing Granholm’s commitment to” tackling the existing climate crisis and delivering an equitable clean energy future” when pressed in 2022 over her late stock filings for up to $240,000 worth in 2021 sales.
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Another example that the right-leaning groups cited was how Granholm’s Energy Department employed Sam Brinton, who was a nuclear official and faced arrests for allegedly stealing luggage at airports. Brinton in April was sentenced to 180 days in jail and agreed to pay over $3,600 in victim restitution in connection to a Las Vegas theft. He pleaded no contest.
In mid-July, records obtained by the right-leaning watchdog Functional Government Initiative revealed Brinton was on a taxpayer-backed trip to the Energy Department’s Nevada National Security Site when the then-official nabbed luggage from Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas.
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“It is an undisputed fact that Jennifer Granholm is a sophisticated federal employee, a trained lawyer, and an experienced public servant,” the coalition wrote in the letter. “The American people have every right to demand a high ethical bar for anyone with such credentials charged to lead a large and important federal agency. You often speak of maintaining the highest standards for your administration’s appointees. It is past time that you demonstrate that this promise holds some meaning.”
The White House and Energy Department did not reply to requests for comment.