Zients served as the White House’s Covid-19 coordinator until he left last April. While Zients is not a scientist, he came to the task force with a range of management experience and was charged with working across government agencies to curtail the coronavirus outbreak.
Zients won internal praise for his management skills and initial success in bringing the pandemic under control.
He was the first chief performance officer in the Office of Management and Budget
In 2009, then-President Barack Obama created a position for Zients in the Office of Management and Budget called chief performance officer. The role required Zients to head an effort to streamline government and cut costs.
Zients invested in Call Your Mother bagels
Zients was known to have invested in D.C.’s popular “Jew-ish” deli Call Your Mother. Zients also acted as “adviser and mentor” for the bagel shop, where a lot of the recipe tasting took place in his home.
He unsuccessfully competed for ownership of the Washington Nationals
In 2005, Zients was part of a group of investors that included Fred Malek and Colin Powell, who tried to buy the Washington Nationals the first time around but lost out to the Lerner family.
He made Fortune magazine’s 40 under 40 list
In 2002, Zients was ranked 25th on Fortune magazine’s list of the 40 richest Americans under age 40. At the time, the magazine estimated his wealth at $149 million, leaving him one place above Julia Roberts and two behind Elon Musk.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Zients has maintained close ties to departing chief of staff Ron Klain and other senior Biden aides dating back to the Obama administration, when he did stints atop the National Economic Council and Office of Management and Budget.
In recent months, Klain had tasked Zients with overseeing a project to prepare for the expected staff transition that typically occurs following the midterms. The move underscored Zients’ status as an administration insider and broadened his familiarity with the staff he’ll soon lead. The president, a person familiar with the decision said, views Zients as a “master implementer.”
But what Zients has in organization acumen he lacks in extensive political experience. He will likely be relied on to manage the day-to-day workings of the White House, allowing other senior advisers to focus more on Biden’s expected reelection campaign, one person familiar with the matter said.
While he’s cultivated a wide array of relationships within Democratic circles, Zients has also been the subject of rising criticism from the party’s progressive wing over his background in management consulting and handling of the pandemic, which has persisted well beyond his exit as Covid czar.
In a statement released by the Revolving Door Project, Zients was characterized as someone who “has become astonishingly rich by profiteering in health care” companies and who embodies the “corporate misconduct” that the executive branch needs to penalize.
“We have long argued for a ‘corporate crackdown’ on behaviors that violate federal laws and harm the American people in order for corporations to become richer. Those are the practices that have made Zients rich,” the organization’s founder and director, Jeff Hauser, said in the statement. “We’re deeply worried that Zients will prevent the administration from exercising power righteously on behalf of an already cynical populace.”
But Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, gave Zients the benefit of the doubt in his ability to cultivate a constructive relationship.
“Ron Klain has been an open ear and even-handed engager of actors across the Democratic Party,” Green said in a statement. “Whomever the next chief of staff is, that will be the continued hope and expectation. There will likely be an early relationship and trust-building stage.”
Zients’ selection is also likely to disappoint some Democrats who saw Klain’s exit as a prime opportunity for Biden to appoint a woman or person of color as his top aide.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Washington: FBI investigators have found additional classified documents from US President Joe Biden’s residence in Wilmington after conducting a 13-hour search of the home, intensifying the probe into discoveries that could become a political and possible legal liability for him as he prepares to launch a reelection bid in 2024.
Bob Bauer, the President’s personal attorney, said in a statement that during the search on Friday, “Department of Justice took possession of materials it deemed within the scope of its inquiry, including six items consisting of documents with classification markings and surrounding materials, some of which were from the President’s service in the Senate and some of which were from his tenure as vice president.
“DOJ also took for further review personally handwritten notes from the vice-presidential years,” he said.
The total number of classified documents found in the residences and private offices of Biden has now increased to nearly a dozen and a half. All documents, including from his term as vice president from 2009 to 2016, have now been taken into possession of federal agents.
“DOJ requested that the search not be made public in advance, in accordance with its standard procedures, and we agreed to cooperate,” Bauer said.
Biden is spending time at his Wilmington, Delaware residence this weekend.
“DOJ had full access to the President’s home, including personally handwritten notes, files, papers, binders, memorabilia, to-do lists, schedules, and reminders going back decades,” Bauer said.
Last week, US Attorney General Merrick B Garland appointed a special counsel Robert Hur to investigate the discovery of the classified documents at the private offices and residence of the President.
Richard Sauber, Special Counsel to the President, said that Biden directed his personal lawyers to be fully cooperative with the Justice Department as part of its ongoing investigation. That has been the case since a small number of materials were initially discovered at the Penn Biden Center, he said.
The President and his team are working swiftly to ensure the DOJ and the Special Counsel have what they need to conduct a thorough review, he said.
“Neither the President nor the First Lady were present during the search. The President’s lawyers and White House Counsel’s Office will continue to cooperate with the DOJ and the Special Counsel to help ensure this process is conducted swiftly and efficiently,” Sauber said.
The federal search of Biden’s home, while voluntary, marks an escalation of the probe into the President’s handling of classified documents and will inevitably draw comparisons to his predecessor, former president Donald Trump- even if the FBI’s search of Trump’s residence was conducted under different circumstances, CNN said.
Trump also faces a probe over his alleged mishandling of hundreds of classified documents at his Florida Mar-a-Lago residence and his alleged failure to comply with a subpoena.
The lengthy search and subsequent discovery of more documents is a political headache and a possible legal liability for Biden, as he prepares to declare whether he will run for a second term.
Biden, 80, already America’s oldest sitting president, in November said he intends to run again for the presidency in 2024.
Biden said he was “surprised” to learn of the discovery of the records. He had branded his predecessor Trump, “irresponsible” for storing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
President Biden told reporters in California on Thursday that he “has no regrets” on the handling of documents marked classified.
When asked why the White House didn’t disclose the existence of the documents in November before the midterm elections, he told reporters he thinks they’re going to find out “there’s no there there.” A first batch of classified documents had been found on November 2 at the Penn Biden Center, a think-tank Biden founded in Washington DC.
A second batch of records was found on December 20 in the garage at his Wilmington home, while another document was found in a storage space at the house on January 12.
After finding the documents, Biden said his team immediately turned them over to the National Archives and the Justice Department.
Under the Presidential Records Act, White House records are supposed to go to the National Archives once an administration ends, where they can be stored securely.
The Republican Party was quick to slam Biden after the new discovery.
“This says some of the docs are from his Senate service. Serious Q: how on earth did he do that? I’ve served in the Senate for 10 years. Every single classified doc I’ve read—100%—has been in a secure SCIF (sensitive compartmented information facility) in the basement of the Capitol. What the hell??” Senator Ted Cruz said.
“Even more highly classified documents were found in Biden’s home!! How are they just now discovering these? This is getting out of hand. As Vice President, Biden had NO RIGHT to possess these. This scandal is getting bigger every single day!!” Congressman Ronny Jackson said.
“After all the misleading, downplaying statements made by the WH (White House), it’s time for the FBI to seal the crime scene, bar anyone from the WH, including POTUS (President of the United States) and his lawyers, from entering and conducting the search themselves. No more special treatment,” former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said.
Emboldened by a new majority and armed with subpoena power, House Republicans were already gearing up for a series of investigations into the Biden family’s finances and Biden’s son Hunter.
The discovery of the classified documents opens up a new line of inquiry.
“I think Congress has to investigate this,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Thursday.
Bauer said the paperwork was from Biden’s time in the Senate and as vice president. Justice Department officials also took handwritten notes from the vice presidential years, he said.
“DOJ had full access to the president’s home, including personally handwritten notes, files, papers, binders, memorabilia, to-do lists, schedules, and reminders going back decades,” he said.
Bauer added that Justice Department officials requested that the search not be made public in advance, in accordance with its standard procedures, and that the president’s legal team agreed to cooperate.
“The President’s lawyers and White House Counsel’s Office will continue to cooperate with DOJ and the Special Counsel to help ensure this process is conducted swiftly and efficiently,” Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, said in a separate statement Saturday evening.
Joseph Fitzpatrick, a spokesperson for the U.S attorney originally tapped to oversee matters connected to the records, said “the FBI executed a planned, consensual search of the President’s residence in Wilmington, Delaware.”
In an interview on MSNBC Saturday evening, Ian Sams, a spokesperson for the White House counsel’s office, confirmed the search was “consensual and cooperative” and said no warrant was involved.
Sams said Biden told aides to “offer up DOJ access to the house,” leading to Friday’s search. “He [has] proactively offered access to these homes to the Department of Justice to conduct a thorough search,” he said.
Sams said he could not speak “to the underlying content” of any of the documents taken from Biden’s home.
The search was part of a special counsel investigation into the president’s handling of classified materials found in November at his office in Washington and in December and January at his home in Wilmington. The sporadic revelations about the documents over the past several weeks have helped keep the story in the headlines.
And that steady drip of additional information that has widened the scope of the probe into Biden’s handling of classified material from his time as vice president has raised fresh frustration among some Democrats.
Specifically, they’ve questioned why the search wasn’t conducted sooner and more thoroughly, especially after Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, became enmeshed in a similar inquiry about documents kept at his private Mar-a-Lago club and residence in Florida. The White House’s communications strategy around the matter has also come under harsh scrutiny.
The president and first lady Jill Biden were not present for the search. Both are spending the weekend at their home in Rehoboth Beach, Del.
Asked Friday whether their travel was related to the probe into classified material, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she would “continue to be prudent and consistent and respect the Department of Justice process.”
“As it relates to his travel, as you know, he often travels to Delaware on the weekends. I just don’t have anything else to share,” Jean-Pierre said.
Attorney General Merrick Garland recently appointed former federal prosecutor Robert Hur as a special counsel to investigate any potential wrongdoing surrounding the Biden documents. Garland previously assigned John Lausch, the U.S. Attorney for Chicago, to lead the probe.
Jonathan Lemire, Eugene Daniels and Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Klain is expected to depart in the coming weeks. He finalized his decision to leave to coincide with the administration’s two-year anniversary, which he and other staffers marked Friday with a hearty celebration of their accomplishments.
It comes as the administration enters a new phase of Biden’s presidency, pivoting from legislating to fending off investigations by the new House GOP majority and preparing for the president’s likely reelection campaign.
News of Klain’s impending departure was first reported by the New York Times.
A prolific tweeter and emailer known for working 16-hour days, Klain largely succeeded in making the West Wing a cohesive workplace — although detractors both inside and outside the building criticized his tendency to micromanage and at times questioned his political instincts. Despite Biden’s low approval numbers and persistent inflation, Democrats did far better than expected in November’s midterm election, validating Biden’s tenure and Klain’s approach.
Biden, who relied heavily on Klain and a small group of senior aides who’ve been with him for years, had urged him to remain in the job. But many White House staffers acknowledged the physical grind of the high-pressure position and wondered how long he could keep up his pace.
Some of those senior aides, including presidential counselor Steve Ricchetti and senior adviser Anita Dunn, are among the most discussed names of Klain’s potential successor. Jeff Zients, who served as Biden’s first coronavirus coordinator and who Klain tasked with managing the expected staff and Cabinet turnover following the midterms, is also mentioned frequently as a potential next chief of staff.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Anger is mounting in EU capitals at a “massive” and “super aggressive” $370bn US green subsidy package that many fear will deal a hammer blow to Europe’s industry and economy. But the bloc is deeply divided over how to respond.
Signed into law last August, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) offers huge subsidies and tax credits to companies investing in electric vehicles and renewable energy technologies, such as batteries, solar panels and wind turbines – as long as the products and parts they manufacture are made in America.
The bloc’s riposte is being hampered by fierce disagreements between member states over relaxing strict EU state aid rules – which mostly bar such generous corporate tax breaks – as well as over the prospect of more joint borrowing.
At stake, analysts warn, could be the fate of Europe’s manufacturing base, squeezed not only by record energy prices and an “aggressive” China, but now also by a US administration seen as heedlessly protectionist. Some have warned of potential deindustrialisation of Europe barring concerted action.
“The EU has never had an industrial policy worthy of the name,” said Luuk van Middelaar, a historian. “Faced with China and the US now increasingly exercising their power in this way, it really needs one now – but getting it right will really not be straightforward.”
The EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has pledged a targeted and temporary relaxation of state aid rules and a common fund to protect the bloc’s green tech industry from wipeout. National leaders are due to discuss the IRA at a summit in February.
Building on that theme in a speech at Davos on Tuesday, Von der Leyen said Brussels would propose asovereignty fund to boost medium-term resources for innovation, research and green industrial projects, with a bridging solution – more immediate funds – to provide “fast and targeted support”.
Whether, and how soon, member states can agree on a package, however, is open to question. “Finding the right response to the IRA will be a key political issue for the EU this year,” said Mujtaba Rahman of the Eurasia group. “Reforming strict state-aid rules will not be easy. Nor will be debates over an EU fund to maintain a level playing field in the single market.”
EU officials and national politicians alike have railed against the IRA, saying it discriminates against European companies selling to the US and – with US energy costs up to four times lower than in Europe – could prove catastrophic for industrial investment.
“I understand the importance of the IRA from the US perspective but on the side of Europe it is seen as much more controversial,” the Czech industry minister, Jozef Síkela, told a round table at Davos. “It is saying to European investors ‘go to the US, because it is more profitable to you’.”
Alexander De Croo, Belgium’s prime minister, went further last week, accusing the US of actively enticing European companies to move. “They are calling firms, in a very aggressive way, to say ‘don’t invest in Europe, we have something better’,” he said.
The Dutch foreign trade minister, Liesje Schreinemacher, has described the IRA as “very worrying”, and Germany’s finance minister, Christian Lindner, called it “enormously protectionist”. His French counterpart, Bruno Le Maire, said that subsidies four to 10 times greater than EU rules allow would upend the “level playing field that is the core of the transatlantic trade relationship”.
The commission has formally expressed “serious concerns” and warned of “retaliatory measures” – which potentially includes a complaint to the World Trade Organization on grounds that the IRA’s provisions on locally produced content violate WTO rules.
Although Washington has promised to look into possible adjustments, European officials expect no big changes and view the only tweaks so far – tax credits for electric vans and trucks – as altogether inadequate.
The EU’s internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, has toured EU capitals to float a “European clean tech act” as a way to channel cash to the bloc’s green tech industry, noting that all were aware of the need for “fast, coordinated, action”.
But Breton’s plan is in its early stages and its funding is unclear amid continuing discord among member states over how to pay for any combined response by the EU27 to what France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, called the “super-aggressive” IRA.
Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition chief, last week announced a review of state aid rules, saying European industry faced a number of challenges, including the very real risk of the IRA “luring some … EU businesses into moving investments to the US”.
State subsidies are, however, a notoriously touchy subject within the bloc, with smaller countries in particular fearing laxer rules would allow big countries with more financial firepower – such as France and Germany – to offer unfair support to their companies, fatally distorting the single market.
Paris and Berlin have issued calls for aid rules to be quickly eased. France wants nothing less than a wholesale remodelling of EU industry support, calling for a “modernisation and simplification shock” including higher notification thresholds for projects in key green tech sectors.
But smaller, less interventionist, countries such as the Netherlands and the Czech Republic, have been far from reassured by recent data showing, perhaps unsurprisingly, that German and French companies hogged nearly 80% of state aid in the EU last year. According to commission data 53% of all state aid permitted in 2022 under a temporary easing of the rules to deal with the energy crisis went to companies in Germany, and 24% went to companies in France – despite the other 25 member states accounting for at least 50% of the EU’s total GDP.
Vestager has acknowledged this danger, calling members’ wildly differing capacities to afford big state subsidies “a risk for the integrity of Europe”, and proposed that any relaxation of state aid rules to counter the IRA should be accompanied by a “collective European fund”, probably financed with joint EU debt.
That idea is supported by France. Italy’s new prime minister, GiorgiaMeloni, too, said she would back a European sovereignty fund. But Germany and other influential member states, including the Netherlands, are far from keen on the idea if it involves any more joint EU borrowing.
Lindner was particularly adamant at a meeting of EU finance ministers last December. “A sovereignty fund must not be a new attempt at joint European borrowing,” he said. “We see no reason for additional European debt.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
The newsletter also invited readers to “customize your banking experience with Wells Fargo’s HBCU Legends’ Collection,” linking to marketing materials about debit cards offered by the bank that are co-branded with HBCU logos or mascots.
“The email that was sent out today was inappropriate and the Department has already taken steps to ensure a mistake like this does not happen again,” an Education Department spokesperson said in an email, adding that the White House HBCU Initiative doesn’t have a partnership with Wells Fargo.
A representative for Wells Fargo did not respond to an inquiry about whether the bank was involved in the creation of the newsletter.
The weekly newsletter is available to the public and sent to subscribers who elect to receive information about HBCUs from the Education Department. The newsletter does not appear to be published online but was received by a POLITICO reporter who was signed up for the list.
In total, the email, which featured Wells Fargo’s logo, included at least eight different links to Wells Fargo content, including the bank’s job openings and various pages describing its diversity and inclusion efforts. It included, for example, a link to a Wells Fargo video on YouTube promoting the bank’s sponsorship of HBCU football games. And the email also linked to content sponsored by Wells Fargo on the website Blavity titled “Wells Fargo Is Showing Up for HBCUs.”
The newsletter included a disclosure at the bottom that says its content is not meant to be an endorsement of any “products or services offered.” But the promotion of a major bank is a departure for the typical content of the weekly missive, which usually focuses on job opportunities, programs or grants that are available for HBCU students and graduates across various federal agencies.
The email from the Education Department promoting Wells Fargo comes after other parts of the Biden administration have cracked down on the bank.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in December hit the company with a $3.7 billion penalty, the largest ever for the agency, as part of a settlement to resolve allegations that Wells Fargo mismanaged auto loans, mortgages and deposit accounts. On Tuesday, apparently coincidentally, the CFPB published information on how millions of consumers would be able to access some of the money from that settlement.
The Education Department regulates financial products that are marketed to college students or part of agreements between universities and banks, including some of those that are offered by Wells Fargo.
A CFPB report last year criticized the department for essentially taking a lax approach to enforcing those regulations, which are known as “cash management” rules. The Education Department announced earlier this month that it plans begin the process of revising those regulations.
More than three dozen universities have reported to the Education Department that they have agreements with Wells Fargo to offer campus financial products, according to information published on the agency’s website.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
