The Patriot Post® · Biden Waives His Own Ethics Rule
In yet another example of Democrat double standards, Joe Biden has waived ethics rules intended to prevent unions from having undue influence with the executive branch. Fox News reports, “Beginning as early as March, the White House waived certain rules for former labor union personnel slotted to fill Biden’s transition teams and government vacancies, who would have otherwise been prevented from communicating with their old unions.”
Thus far, two former union officials who are now part of the Biden administration — Alethea Predeoux at the Office of Personnel and Management and Celeste Drake, who leads the administration’s Made In America Office — have been granted waivers from the ethics rule. That allows them to freely communicate with their “former” unions, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the Directors Guild of America (DGA) and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), respectively. It’s almost as if they never left.
Speaking of union influence in Biden administration policy, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky worked with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) in crafting the CDC’s guidelines for reopening schools. Unsurprisingly, those guidelines were quite accommodating to the teachers union.
Back on Inauguration Day, Biden issued an executive order implementing an ethics rule regarding this very influence peddling. New appointees in every executive agency are now required to take an ethics pledge: “I will not for a period of 2 years from the date of my appointment participate in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts.” Moreover, “I will not for a period of 2 years from the date of my appointment participate in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts.”
Of course, when the Biden administration — which has significant connections to unions, beginning with Jill Biden — wants former union officials on the team, Biden simply issues a waiver declaring that it’s “in the public interest.” The truth is, these waivers may be in Biden’s interest, but they’re not in the interest of the American public. It’s all about money and power. As National Republican Senatorial Committee spokeswoman Katharine Cooksey asserts, “The pattern of corruption between Democrats and big union bosses is obvious — just follow the money and follow the staff.”
For example, Cooksey notes, “Since the very first day of the Biden administration, every single Democrat has echoed the same union-approved talking points to keep schools closed and to jam a radical, job-killing agenda through Congress. While Republicans are working to get kids back in the classrooms and the economy moving again, Democrats are taking orders from their bosses at the unions to keep schools closed and stifle job opportunities.”
We suppose Team Biden has to do something to appease unions given all the cheap, wage-undermining foreign labor being ushered across the border in record numbers.