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Tag: Garcetti

  • Garcetti confirmed as US Ambassador to India

    Garcetti confirmed as US Ambassador to India

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    Washington: Eric Garcetti was confirmed as the next US Ambassador to India on Wednesday, ending a logjam that had left an important American mission abroad without a regular envoy for almost two years and his fate in the balance.

    The US Senate confirmed him in a 52-42 vote with cross-voting from both parties, with several Democrats voting against Garcetti, a nominee of the Democratic President Joe Biden, and several Republicans siding voting for him.

    Garcetti, a former Mayor of Los Angeles, was once a rising star in the Democratic party, but had had come under severe criticism lately for ignoring complaints of sexual harassment against one of senior aides. His nomination had been stalled over these allegations, which came up during his confirmation hearing.

    President Biden had first nominated him in July 2021, but it did not proceed and it was technically deemed as returned to the White House, to either be re-sent or replaced.

    The Biden White House sent back the nomination this January when the new congress went into session, demonstrating the administration’s unwavering backing for him, which, it was noted, will hold him in good stead by those who may tend to consider him damaged because of the protracted fight over his confirmation.

    Garcetti’s re-nomination had run into fresh trouble in February when Republican Senator Marco Rubio announced a hold on it along with a bunch of others, including Rich Verma, who has been named to be a Deputy Secretary of State, and Geeta Rao Gupta as Ambassador at large for global women’s issues.

    The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 13-8 to approve his nomination last week, setting up a vote by the full 100-member senate.

    With Garcetti’s nomination stalled and the Biden administration refusing to name a nomination, observers of the bilateral relationship wondered if this was a manifestation of a deeper problem between India and US, because this was possibly the longest America has not had an ambassador in New Delhi.

    This prolonged period of no-ambassador also coincided with extraordinary delays in issuance of US visas in India, with the waiting period for first-time applicants for business and tourism visas reaching two years at its worst (it’s been cut down considerably now).

    Relations between the two countries were in an overdrive with President Biden putting the Quad front and centre of his Indo-Pacific strategy early in his administration, resulting in several virtual and in-person meetings bilaterally with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and multilaterally, with counterparts from Japan and Australia.

    At his confirmation hearing, Garcetti had vowed to “double-down on our efforts to strengthen India’s capacity to secure its borders, defend its sovereignty, and deter aggression” — music to ears on Raisina Hill but he also plans to raise thorny issues such as the Indian purchase of the Russian S-400 air defence missile system, human rights, and democratic values.

    Garcetti was once widely expected to run for White House, given his credentials: Hispanic descent, top Democratic operative, a top operative in a presidential campaign, Rhodes scholar at Oxford and alumnus of London School of Economics. Fifty one-year-old Garcetti is close to the White House and was once considered a potential member of the Biden cabinet but the same allegations that came up during his confirmation hearing had come in his way.

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    ( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

  • How Eric Garcetti avoided a career-ending humiliation and made it to New Delhi

    How Eric Garcetti avoided a career-ending humiliation and made it to New Delhi

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    That’s because it was. Garcetti’s future in big-league elected politics would have dimmed considerably had he failed to get to New Delhi. The 52-year-old Democrat spent months trying to beat back accusations that he knew about allegations that a top aide had sexually harassed and assaulted fellow office members and others. On Wednesday, Garcetti was able to advance with the help of seven Republicans, winning Senate confirmation in a 52-42 vote.

    Much of the public posturing around the vote focused on seating a top diplomat in a key geopolitical nation.

    For Garcetti and his team — but also to an extent the White House — it was also about survival. Get Eric to India so he can try to put this behind him. It’s why Garcetti returned time and again to Washington, privately ducking into Senate offices and spending so many days in the Capitol while he was still mayor that people close to him started referring to it as a satellite City Hall. (West Wing Playbook spotted Garcetti at the White House between meetings with senior officials twice in the last 20 months).

    It’s why Garcetti’s parents, Gil and Suki, spent $90,000 of their own money on lobbyists for him through the end of last year. It’s also why he enlisted scores of staffers to sign petitions, letters and make calls to senators attesting to his character. And it’s why Biden’s top legislative affairs staffers, Louisa Terrell and Reema Dodin, along with Garcetti, scrambled into the final hours to secure a few more votes.

    “I’ve had the best job one could ever imagine in politics and if I never had a political job tomorrow, I would die happy,” Garcetti told West Wing Playbook after the vote. At one point, he fielded a congratulatory call from Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.). “What hurts is untruths and attacks against your reputation. … Your reputation is everything. That’s all you have. And you better defend it. And people who believe in you better defend it. And they did.”

    The issue that nearly tanked his nomination should have been obvious to Garcetti, but its radioactivity wasn’t at first. At his initial Senate hearing, Garcetti fielded just one throw-away question on whether he knew at the time about sexual harassment allegations against a top confidant, Rick Jacobs. Garcetti testified under oath that he did not and would have acted swiftly if he had.

    But the campaign against him was so relentless and formidable that it surprised even Garcetti. Former aides, led by Naomi Seligman, worked around the clock for much of the past 20 months. They pointed to court testimony and their own experiences with Jacobs and Garcetti to contend there was no way the mayor didn’t know, and that he oversaw an office culture that silenced victims. They met with nearly a third of the Senate, winning conservative allies like Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), but ultimately being disappointed by others, namely Democrats who have spoken out over their careers about harassment and sexual assault.

    “Yes, we need an ambassador to India,” Seligman said after the vote. “But having the right person is more important than having a person right now. We all knew who Eric Garcetti is. This vote didn’t change that.”

    Garcetti maintained his lack of knowledge about Jacobs and pointed to the people from his office staff and around him who for years have said the same. “There were so many things that were so easy to rebut once people spend the time and don’t just listen to me, but listen to the first-hand witnesses that were there,” Garcetti said. He suggested that his detractors used the Jacobs controversy to humiliate him.

    “Other accusations or beefs that people have, I’ve never closed off that those should be adjudicated someplace else,” he said. “But don’t try to pull me in just because I have a public name or title.”

    A loyal and early ally for the president, Garcetti was diplomatic about how long senators took to hold their floor vote. Once the nomination stalled, he was fine with waiting till after the midterms. He had influential allies willing to be patient too, including Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, longtime friends who made calls and whipped votes.

    “I can’t tell you how many senators said I talked to X, Y and Z who went to college with you, the person who married you, the person who heads up an organization who’s known you for 20 years, who’s traveled with you for two or three weeks. Those sorts of things meant a lot to people,” Garcetti said.

    As for his political future, he doesn’t deny rumors about eyeing a possible statewide run in California, perhaps for governor when Gavin Newsom steps down. Possibilities like that, after all, may now be there when he returns.

    “I know every politician has secret plans. My only focus is on this job. I want to serve this country and do the best that I can at this moment,” he said. “I’ll always come back to L.A., but I have no idea whether I’ll ever run for anything or not.”

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    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Almost out of La La Land: Garcetti nom hits a make or break moment

    Almost out of La La Land: Garcetti nom hits a make or break moment

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    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was noncommittal when asked Tuesday about Garcetti. But the coming hearing before the Foreign Relations Committee has brought a sudden uptick in confidence among Garcetti allies inside and out of the administration who have spent more than a year trying to build support for him in the chamber.

    “I think we have to take a vote, I think he has the votes. I think there will be senators that use all of their rights to delay the nomination but my sense is he’s going to get confirmed,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told POLITICO. “He’s been actively working, the White House and State Department have been working. We just had other priorities.”

    Garcetti’s uncertain fate signals the beginning of a rare rough patch between Biden and the Democratic-run Senate chamber. So far, in his presidency, the White House has only seen a handful of nominees withdrawn. But other picks are sparking controversy, with some Democrats concerned over a current Biden circuit court pick due to his handling of a school sexual assault case. And the president’s pick to lead the Federal Aviation Administration is up in the air after Sen. Ted Cruz demanded that the chamber hold off on considering him.

    None of those nominees, however, have been as high profile or gone on as long as Garcetti. He once seemed destined for a plum gig in the Biden administration after representing one of the 2020 campaign’s most prominent supporters. Allegations that he was aware of sexual assault and harassment accusations made by some on his staff against his former top political adviser, Rick Jacobs, have complicated that glide path.

    While Garcetti has repeatedly denied knowledge of those allegations, some Republicans led by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) concluded that he was aware — or should have been aware — of them. Meanwhile, Garcetti has spent considerable sums of money on lobbyists to rally support for his cause and push back against critics of his nomination who have been in touch frequently with senators urging them to reject him.

    “Any support in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for this nominee is a bitter pill to swallow for all those who believe that enabling and covering up sexual harassment and abuse should be disqualifying for public office in America,” said Libby Liu, the chief executive of Whistleblower Aid. “The evidence is clear that he is unfit to represent our country anywhere in the world, and especially to the world’s largest democracy with a deeply troubled record on gender-based violence.”

    Garcetti himself has been meeting with key officials and focusing on locking up support from Republican senators. His parents have hired a lobbyist to help shepherd the nomination. And the blitz seems to be making inroads with some in that audience.

    Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she had “an excellent meeting” with Garcetti on Monday. “He clearly is very knowledgeable about India and we talked about the allegations that he was not sufficiently attentive to the sexual harassment allegations against one of his employees,” she said, adding that she wants to look at the Grassley report before making a final decision.

    “I don’t think applying the standard of ‘should have known’ is fair,” Collins said. “If there’s evidence that he did know then that’s different. And that’s what I need to sort out. But I was impressed with him.”

    Biden officials and Garcetti himself have been leaning into the argument that the U.S. has gone far too long without a top diplomat in India. But it’s unclear how far that pitch will go.

    “We know it’s an important post, we need another nominee,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who had previously raised issues with the nomination. “It’s not just Republicans, there are Democrats too who are wavering on their support for Garcetti because of past actions in the office.”

    Indeed, Democrats and others close to the process said they anticipate resistance and some nominal opposition to Garcetti’s nomination from within his party should it come to the floor. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) said he’s read through Grassley’s report and remains concerned about Garcetti, adding that he has not spoken to the White House about it. Kelly, who has rebuffed Democratic powerbrokers’ attempts to influence his decision, is not expected to support the nomination.

    Other Democrats declined to say where they stood should he come to the floor, with several contending they were still researching the matter.

    “Some of the issues I want to go over and see how much culpability or responsibility is with him in regards to the sexual harassment,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

    But Garcetti’s pick has dragged on so long that some senators — including at least one who for months had made her concerns known — conceded in interviews that they simply wanted it all to be over with.

    “I’m ready to move on,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), who will back Garcetti. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) also indicated Tuesday that she’ll support Garcetti.

    In addition to Garcetti, Republicans have also made former New Hampshire Attorney General Michael Delaney’s nomination to the First Circuit Court of Appeals a primary focus. Specifically, they have criticized Delaney’s representation of St. Paul’s School in a school sexual assault case and his decision to file a motion that would have only allowed the plaintiff, who was a minor, to remain anonymous if she agreed not to speak about the case publicly.

    Delaney maintains staunch support from his home-state Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, as well as the White House. His backers cite support from trial attorneys who have represented plaintiffs of sexual and violent crimes, as well as endorsements from former President Barack Obama’s director of the office on violence against women and the former director of New Hampshire’s attorney general’s office of victim/witness assistance.

    Still, Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said he’s reviewing Delaney’s record. And Sen. Richard Blumenthal
    (D-Conn.), a member of the committee, said he hasn’t reached a decision yet on whether he’ll support Delaney, adding that he’s waiting for the nominee’s answers to written questions.

    “I have concerns about the questions that have been raised about his tactics during one of the litigations and other potential issues,” the Connecticut Democrat said.

    The White House reiterated in a statement that Delaney has a strong track record of upholding the rule of law, including taking action to protect vulnerable victims.

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    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )