Below is my column in the New York Post on the move of the Biden White House to shift work of the “Climate Czar” from the State Department to the White House. John Podesta will now reportedly wield the power without the title and, most importantly, without a confirmation hearing.
Here is the column:
With the departure of John Kerry as “climate czar,” President Biden has announced that he will be replaced by John Podesta, a Democratic powerbroker and Washington insider.
Podesta, however, will take the power and not the title. He will be appointed as “coordinator,” thus sidestepping confirmation by the Senate, which could have been brutal.
Such action will shield Podesta from questions about Kerry’s work and expenses as climate czar. Before leaving office, Kerry refused to turn over information on his staff to Congress and the public. The Biden Administration is now being sued over the secrecy.
It would also spare Podesta from answering questions over his own past work as well as his brother’s ties to Chinese companies. Likewise, senators, including Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, have criticized Podesta for comments favoring payments to Chinese companies in the energy sector.
Sen. Josh Hawley objected that “John Podesta runs a think-tank funded by big tech, he’s spent years working for dark-money climate activists, and has said he has the ‘highest regard’ for CCP officials.”
Biden is not the first president to avoid confirmation fights. Former president Donald Trump often kept officials in “acting” capacities both to avoid confirmation as well as to make the termination of such officials easier.
It is not a good practice given the constitutional role that the Senate is supposed to play in the approval of high-ranking executive branch officials.
Worse yet, Congress expressly sought to guarantee that this position would remain subject to the confirmation process. In the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress mandated (and Biden agreed to) a prohibition from appointing any State Department special envoy “without the advice and consent of the Senate.”
That was important given the controversies over Kerry pledging sweeping changes to U.S. policy, including his assurance to world leaders that the Biden Administration was “phasing out” fossil fuels — a move that some view as ruinous economically.
Podesta also has other unfinished business with Congress.
A confirmation hearing might have allowed Senators to get public answers on one of the least discussed aspects of the debunked Steele dossier that factored greatly in the Russian investigation during the Trump Administration.
Podesta was the chair of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, which secretly funded the dossier while denying that fact to the public and the media.
The Clinton campaign was eventually fined for the deceptive practice.
The Federal Election Commission found that Clinton campaign and DNC payments to Fusion GPS were funneled through Perkins Coie and its general counsel, Marc Elias. As the campaign denied funding the dossier, Elias paid out $1,024,407 for the dossier in 2016 as “legal advice and services.”
Elias has featured prominently in the filings of Special Counsel John Durham and was called before the grand jury.
It was only after the election that journalists discovered that the Clinton campaign was lying and hid payments for the Steele dossier as “legal fees” among the $5.6 million paid to Perkins Coie.
New York Times reporter Ken Vogel objected that Elias had denied involvement in the anti-Trump dossier. When Vogel tried to report the story, he said, Elias “pushed back vigorously, saying ‘You (or your sources) are wrong.’” Times reporter Maggie Haberman declared, “Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year.”
That bring us back to John Podesta.
Podesta was called to Congress to answer questions and he categorically denied any contractual agreement with Fusion GPS.
Sitting beside him was Elias, who reportedly said nothing.
It is clear that the denial of campaign funding was false and critics have charged that Elias knew it at the time. The question is whether Podesta knew it. He might not have.
Podesta is the ultimate D.C. power broker. He is smart and respected. He knows the value of asking the right questions and when not to ask questions. He may have been in the dark about Elias’ work, even if it was a case of willful blindness.
None of these issues will now be subject to the scrutiny of a confirmation investigation and hearing. The move will also shift much of the authority into the White House and shield Podesta from the added scrutiny. It is the perfect move for a Washington insider. Podesta knows that government is about the power, not the title.
It is the Rasputin effect. Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was a Russian mystic who held huge influence over the Russian Czar and Czarina without holding office. In other words, you do not need to be czar to act as a czar.
Jonathan Turley is an attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School.
Trump will have to enlist the Army Corps of Engineers to clean up the slime trail this swamp creature will leave behind.
All of Washington is an Augean stables full of brown stuff and sadly Trump is all too human, no Hercules, who was half god. There are too few “good men” (or women) available to him help who can withstand the smear job the Dems and Demedia do on them.
Didn’t Podesta have some implication in the “Pizza Thing” and pedophilia? Of course, he’ll fit right in with Pedo Joe, they can exchange pictures of little kids.
OK, I am waiting for one of the childish trolls here to write:
Turley is at it again! The Rasputin Poll is one of the most respected polls there is, but Turley has his head up FOXNews’s rear end!
Rasputin poll…good one!
Why do their dirty work for them, inflicting their idiocy on the thread if they’re absent?
Just more and more a carbon copy of the Obama White House in both form and function. Uglier and uglier.
These people make Jan 6 2021 look like a campus party that got out of hand. This is more like a not so velvet coup.
We’re done. Time to drink all the aging wine in the cellar and stop buying green bananas.
Rasputin was poisoned. Where are useful people when they’re needed?
I guess the Rasputin analogy is apt since the Biden administration is one big Potemkin Village.
Biden is Stalin with bad hair.
HullBobby,
Well said.
Agree. My thoughts exactly.
Biden is certainly responsible for the tens of thousands of Fentanyl deaths of Americans from the free movement of the drug over the southern border that he facilitated in addition to crime victims of invaders. It’s certainly mass killing by American standards if not the millions Stalin murdered.
Color me, Not Surprised By Any of This.
Rash Putin
Don’t black lesbians care about the environment, too?
Absolutely they do, but only white privilege in the Democrat Party gets to handle the money. See Daniel’s comment below.
I nominate Taylor Thunberg for Czarina.
Podesta already controls $370b of climate change funding. It will be used to promote Biden’s prospects in swing states. Moving him to the WH and promoting him will no doubt expand his remit and thus his ability to influence the election.
Daniel: An excellent comment. — and we must not forget all that good stuff found in Podesta’s hacked emails during the Clinton campaign. Machiavelli incarnate.
(from lin.)
Don’t forget that Podesta also signed the ridiculous letter that the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation. He should be kept as far as possible from any position of power.
Democrats are fighting a Civil War Against America
we need to jail the criminal Democrat fascists by the thousands.
The need is inarguable, the ability, zero.
we need to REMOVE power from DC and Wall Street….there is too much centralized power
50% cut in federal spending, end all federal aid to cities, colleges, states and non-profits where anyone gets $100k+
5% tax on the gross of wall street transactions(think sales tax) stocks, bonds, options, etc, and money moving offshore. Make it about INVESTING…not Gambling!
If you remove power from government you remove power from all special interests.
You can not rent what does not exist.
Why does Obamacare come to mind?? Is it money or power that keeps them coming back into our lives? These people tuckup our lives, have waterfront homes, fly around on our dime, best security and somehow become multimillionaires.
When did Podesta get his PhD in meterology / chemistry and or climatology ???
He has his PhD – Power in hands of Dems.
It is not a good practice given the constitutional role that the It is not a good practice given the constitutional role that the Senate is supposed to play in the approval of high-ranking executive branch officials.
Come on Professor, you can say it out loud “It is not a good practice given the constitutional role that the Senate is supposed to play in the approval of
high-ranking executive branch officials.Officers of the United StatesIn Other News: “Renouned Expert Appointed to Gov’t Office. Politicians In Disarray As To What To Do Next.”
1. Podesta never even needed the FARA….and did the same things as Manafort…which got Manafort convicted.
2. Podesta was integral in illary and Barry’s Uranium 1 scheme.
3. Elias w perkins Coie had an FIB office set up in their law firm’s office to spy on and coordinate the spying on Trump
isn’t it great being a Democrat Fascist…laws don’t apply…Deep State has your BACK
Tony Podesta was engaged in the same thing as Manafort, in fact he was hired by Manafort to do the actual lobbying and therefore only Tony P needed to regiister with FARA.
John Podesta is involved with myriads of other scandals.
Yet another act of totalitarianism by the Biden administration.