Government transparency dims under Biden, outside watchdog reports
- June 25, 2022
Natalia Mittelstadt, Just the News
On President Joe Biden’s first day in office, then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki promised that “his objective and his commitment is to bring transparency and truth back to government” — but federal government watchdogs have found the administration significantly lacking in that commitment.
Director of Protect the Public’s Trust Michael Chamberlain told the John Solomon Reports podcast on Wednesday that the Department of Energy has been slow to provide records in response to his organization’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
Last year, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and a slew of other cabinet secretaries, agency directors and senior White House officials attended the COP26 United Nations Climate Change Conference. PPT sought information from the relevant departments and agencies about “how much funding and how many resources were devoted to send staff overseas,” Chamberlain said, in addition to asking “to see the telework agreements of the people who had gone overseas — were they teleworking at home, but then flew to Scotland and attending an in-person conference?”