Tag: conflict of interest

Sen. Warren Introduces Bill to Tighten Ethics Standards for Musk and Other Special Government Employees

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has announced new legislation that will subject Elon Musk and other “special government employees” (SGEs) to the same ethics rules as other federal employees. 

Warren said the legislation was prompted by Musk’s close advisory access to President Donald Trump, coupled with the fact that Musk’s companies have been the recipients of billions in government contracts and subsidies for over a decade.

Her proposed legislation aims to prevent conflicts of interest by preventing SGEs from communicating with government agencies whose work overlaps with their business interests. 

The bill “would apply standard ethics rules to SGEs starting on the SGE’s 61st day in government,” would require the Office of Government Ethics to sign off on any conflict-of-interest waivers issued to SGEs, and make such waivers public. 

A fact sheet on the bill states that “While most ethics laws for regular federal employees apply to SGEs, some apply more loosely and others do not apply at all.”

It would also allow public access to some SGE financial disclosures and require the Office of Personnel Management to keep a list of which federal workers are designated as SGEs. 

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Chairman of Assassination Task Force Touts Mental Health Bill, While Withholding Mental Health Information About Alleged Shooter

Congressman Mike Kelly—the lawmaker blocking access to critical documents about the Butler assassination attempt—must not be allowed to advance a bill that ignores glaring conflicts of interest in behavioral health linked to the Butler, PA assassination attempt of President Trump. KILL THE BILL: HR 2085

Key Connections Being Hidden:

  • Crooks’ Parents & Behavioral Health Influence: Investigative documents withheld by Kelly’s office may reveal ties between Thomas Crooks’ parents (behavioral health “experts”) and entities like Genesis HealthCare, which employed Crooks at its Bethel Park facility.
  • Genesis HealthCare’s Reach: A major behavioral health and nursing home provider, Genesis has subsidiaries spanning 19 states and investors linked to behavioral health tech firms.

Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP represented Genesis in these matters. What is stunning about the law firm that rescued Bethel Skilled Nursing home from Department of Justice inquiries was that Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP is deeply entrenched in the psychiatric drug sector.

The firm has extensive ties to pharmaceutical companies. In fact, the firm handled one of the largest psychotropic drug settlements in United States history in 2017, M.B. v. Tidball, on behalf of a group of nonprofits that the firm also just happens to represent.

The results of this insider settlement by vested stakeholders, psychotropic drugging continues to skyrocket. Big Pharma and the Behavioral Health Industrial Complex was able to walk away from any accountability without losing access to children in State care.

  • AGR Building Investors: The AGR Building is reportedly tied to stakeholders in behavioral health technology—a sector incentivized by bills like H.R. 2085, which lacks ethical guardrails.

Roper Technologies retains a 49% minority stake in Indicor, the industrial company that owns the AGR Building in Butler, PA, through its subsidiary AGR International.

Simultaneously, Roper is aggressively expanding into behavioral health with its pending $1.65 billion acquisition of CentralReach, a leading provider of cloud-based software for Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy serving autism and intellectual/developmental disabilities (IDD).

CentralReach is projected to generate $175 million in revenue and $75 million in EBITDA for the fiscal year ending June 2026, reflecting Roper’s focus on high-growth, tech-enabled healthcare solutions.

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Judge who blocked Trump deportations took junket to event with anti-Trump speakers, sponsor

Months before he blocked President Donald Trump’s deportations of illegal alien gang members, U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg attended a privately-funded legal conference in Idaho that featured sponsors and speakers who have expressed clear anti-Trump sentiments — particularly on immigration — and a theme that echoed the Democrat Party’s 2024 stated mission of saving democracy, according to a judicial ethics report.

Boasberg was one of nine Democrat-appointed judges and three Trump nominated jurists to attend the conference in ritzy Sun Valley, where two of the four sessions were titled “Role of Judges in a Democracy” and the “State of Democracy,” the report shows.

Called a “Privately Funded Seminar Disclosure Report,” the document discloses that Boasberg was in attendance, but offers no details of whether Boasberg was paid for his attendance or travel, or what the remuneration was. 

Overseen by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, the ethical rules governing federal judges require that a private entity who “issues an invitation to a federal judge to attend an educational program as a speaker, panelist, or attendee and offers to pay for or reimburse that judge, in excess of $480, must disclose financial and programmatic information.” The rules do not require a specific accounting for each judge, or even how much was paid to judges at all.

You can view that disclosure here, which is also linked to the official website of the D.C. District Court.

BoasbergDisclosureReport.pdf

Just the News was alerted to the conference and to Boasberg’s attendance by a retired Democrat-appointed judge, who was concerned the July 2024 conference’s focus on judges’ role in a democracy was too close to a political party’s theme for comfort. He declined to be named.

It is possible that his “payment” was merely reimbursement for expenses, but Boasberg did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News.

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Mayor Johnson takes campaign cash from lawyer whose firm has pending lawsuits against City Hall

Chicago lawyer Antonio Romanucci has become one of the better-known civil rights and personal injury attorneys, known for handling high-profile lawsuits, including one that led to a $27 million settlement for the family of George Floyd after his 2020 murder by a Minneapolis cop.

Locally, his Loop law firm Romanucci & Blandin, LLC, represents clients in nine pending lawsuits against City Hall, with one of those cases involving allegations that Chicago cops framed a South Side man for the 1988 murder of a little boy. Two other lawsuits involving the firm have been settled by City Hall since Mayor Brandon Johnson took office in May 2023.

Even though Johnson’s Law Department holds huge sway over such legal cases — often helping decide if and how to settle them, affecting bottom lines for clients and Chicago taxpayers — the mayor continues to accept campaign contributions from Romanucci and other employees of his law firm, records show.

While Johnson is not supposed to accept campaign donations from city contractors under municipal ethics rules, there’s no prohibition on taking campaign cash from lawyers doing battle with City Hall.

A founding partner of his firm, Romanucci gave $5,000 to Friends of Brandon Johnson in a contribution dated Feb. 18, according to Illinois State Board of Elections records.

Elizabeth Romanucci, who handles event planning for the firm, gave $1,000 in a contribution dated Feb. 24, records show.

Stefanie Stein, director of marketing for the firm, gave another $1,000 on the same date.

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Sen Sheldon Whitehouse accused of conflict of interest after he funnels taxpayer funds to his wife’s environmental group

The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) has urged the Senate Select Subcommittee on Ethics to investigate Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) over the granting of millions of dollars in government grants to an advocacy group that Sandra Whitehouse, the senator’s wife, works at. 

FACT Executive Director Kendra Arnold wrote in a letter to select committee Chair James Lankford and Vice Chair Christopher Coons that Sandra Whitehouse has worked for Ocean Conservancy since 2008, with the group paying her through her consulting firm Ocean Wonks LLC since 2017, and paying her directly before that. Since Whitehouse began with the group in 2008, Ocean Conservancy has been awarded 19 government grants worth around $14.2 million, with around half of this reportedly being given to the group in the fall of 2024 alone, “all of which Senator Whitehouse directly voted for.”

“In September 2024, Ocean Conservancy received a $5.2 million federal grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for marine debris cleanup. This grant was funded by the Biden Administration’s ‘Bipartisan Infrastructure Law,’ a bill Sheldon Whitehouse supported and voted for,” Arnold wrote. “In December 2024, Ocean Conservancy also received $1.7 million in federal funding from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to assist with marine debris cleanup. The grant was funded as part of the EPA’s annual appropriations bill, which Sen. Whitehouse also voted for.”

The group said that “While these two grants alone appear to be a conflict of interest, it is even more egregious in the context of Senator Whitehouse’s long history of working on legislation being lobbied for by organizations tied to his wife.”

Ocean Conservancy, Arnold wrote, has spent “millions on federal lobbying expenses over the years on issues relating to oceans, climate change, and environmental cleanup—issues directly championed by Senator Whitehouse, a longtime member (and current Ranking Member) of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee and the co-founder of the Senate’s so-called ‘Oceans Caucus.'”

“For instance, Ocean Conservancy urged Congress to pass the International Maritime Pollution Accountability Act—legislation first introduced by Senator Whitehouse in 2023. Ocean Conservancy also advocated and secured billions in funding for coastal restoration projects in the Inflation Reduction Act. Senator Whitehouse not only voted for that legislation, but touted $3 billion in grant funding for ports and coastal restoration among the ‘Whitehouse-backed measures in the bill.’ In addition to Ocean Conservancy, Sandra Whitehouse has been paid by other organizations that have lobbied the Senate on legislation connected to her husband and received government contracts or federal funds,” the letter stated.

The group stated that “Senator Whitehouse directly voted for legislation that recently led to $6.9 million of taxpayer funds being paid to an organization for which his wife works and receives an income from. This circular relationship appears to be directly contrary to the Senate rules that broadly prohibit Senators from using the power of their office to benefit or appear to benefit themselves or their spouses.”

“As the Ethics Committee has stated: ‘Senators must closely guard against even the appearance that their families or friends are entitled to use [the Senator’s] resources and power for their own personal gain.’ Additionally, even if Senator Whitehouse believes the federal funds are going to a worthy cause, ‘the fact that a cause is worthy does not negate the duty to ensure compliance with ethical standards.’ This is exactly the type of case that citizens view as a conflict of interest and leads to the public’s mistrust in Congress. We request the Senate Ethics Committee conduct a full investigation into Senator Whitehouse’s actions that, at a minimum, have created an appearance of a conflict of interest.”

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Conflicts of Interest in Climate Science: A Systemic Blind Spot

The field of climate science has long been presented as an objective, data-driven discipline, immune to the biases and financial conflicts that plague other scientific domains. However, a recent preprint study by Jessica Weinkle et al, Conflicts of Interest, Funding Support, and Author Affiliation in Peer-Reviewed Research on the Relationship between Climate Change and Geophysical Characteristics of Hurricanes, challenges this assumption, shedding light on an alarming lack of conflict of interest (COI) disclosures in climate research, particularly in studies linking hurricanes to climate change​. She also has an excellent write up of the study on her Substack, Conflicted.

The study’s findings reveal a disturbing trend: not a single one of the 331 authors analyzed disclosed any financial or non-financial conflicts of interest​. Moreover, the research found that funding from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) was a significant predictor of studies reporting a positive association between climate change and hurricane behavior​.

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Thiel-Linked HHS Nominee Threatens MAHA Ambitions with Biotech Stance

Late last November, President Donald Trump announced Jim O’Neill as his nominee for deputy secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), where he would work under Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick for HHS secretary upon confirmation. As deputy secretary, O’Neill would essentially function as the Chief Operating Officer of the department, overseeing “the day-to-day operations of all sub-agencies” as well as leading “public health emergency preparedness,” i.e. the government’s policy responses to bio-terror events, pandemics, etc. In addition, O’Neill would “oversee the development and clearance of HHS regulations” and ostensibly be the main implementer of the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) policy agenda.

Built on a promise to eliminate industry capture of public health regulatory agencies and curb the influence of Big Pharma and Big Food, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA movement played a crucial role in funneling would-be Kennedy voters into the Trump camp. MAHA, in essence, granted the Trump campaign a tinge of populist legitimacy among Covid era dissidents, which grew out of the shuttering of RFK Jr.’s independent presidential run.

However, O’Neill’s business connections, both past and present, as well as his previous statements on public health policy, strongly suggest that he is not only unlikely to implement the policies that MAHA-centric voters are expecting, but that he may in fact pursue an agenda that stands in direct conflict with the main tenets of the MAHA movement. Specifically, he advocates reforming the FDA to deregulate and accelerate the pathway from drug development to legalization. This would notably aid the biotech industry, which has long struggled to get its products approved outside of an “emergency”-based deregulatory paradigm.

When considering the investments and board positions that O’Neill himself has made and held in biotechnology companies, this would likely include mRNA products that Kennedy and other MAHA influencers have spent years criticizing since the Covid-19 pandemic — a clear contradiction between O’Neill’s views on public health, and those which the MAGA base were sold on the campaign trail.

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Biden’s Lame-Duck Loan Czar Finalizes $1.6 Billion Award to Green Power Company He Invested In

President Joe Biden’s departing green energy loan czar this week finalized a controversial $1.6 billion federal loan to a green energy company with which he had prior financial ties—a farewell shot at federal investigators who have been probing conflicts of interest in his lending office.

The Department of Energy’s loan to Plug Power, a hydrogen fuel developer, comes months after Republican lawmakers raised concerns about the company’s past business relationship with DOE Loan Programs Office director Jigar Shah. Shortly before joining the Biden administration, Shah invested $100 million in Plug Power through a green financial firm he founded called Generate Capital, the Washington Free Beacon first reported last year.

The funding announcement comes just weeks after the department’s inspector general called on Shah to immediately halt all loans from the Loan Programs Office, citing a “significant risk of fraud” and conflict-of-interest concerns within the lending program. The LPO eschewed the warning and has pumped out billions to companies in the final weeks of the Biden administration.

The Plug Power announcement is likely to fuel Republican criticism of Shah’s tenure at the LPO, which ballooned from a near-dormant program during President-elect Donald Trump’s first term to a $400 billion spending powerhouse under Biden.

Securities and Exchange Commission records detail a long-standing financial relationship between Plug Power and Generate Capital, an investment firm that Shah founded before joining the Biden administration in 2021, the Free Beacon reported last January. Shah sold his shares in Generate when he entered the government, according to federal disclosure records.

Under Shah’s leadership, Generate loaned over $100 million to Plug Power, one of the firm’s most significant investments, according to its website. Plug Power described Generate as its “longstanding partner” in a 2020 press release, while Shah was running the investment firm. The loan was still active when Shah left Generate to become head of the DOE loan office.

One month after Shah joined the Biden administration, Plug Power applied for federal financing from his office.

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Transgender judge seeks leave to intervene in UK court case over legal definition of ‘woman’

The UK’s first transgender judge is seeking leave to join the litigation in a crucial supreme court case that could significantly affect legal protections for transgender women, the Guardian has learned.

Victoria McCloud, a senior civil judge who became the youngest person appointed as master of the high court in 2010, will make an application to intervene in the supreme court appeal brought by the campaign group For Women Scotland about the legal definition of “woman”. Interveners can put a case without being among the main parties to the litigation.

For Women Scotland is challenging whether Scottish government legislation aimed at improving gender balance on public boards should include transgender women.

The Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018 has been the subject of a long-running court action by the group, which most recently resulted in a ruling by Lady Haldane at the court of session that it was lawful to extend the definition of “woman” to transgender women with a gender recognition certificate.

McCloud, who transitioned in the late 1990s and subsequently changed her legal sex under the 2004 Gender Recognition Act, is supported in her application by the Good Law Project.

She is concerned about the effect of a successful appeal – which would affect the whole of the UK – on her legal recognition.

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9 New ‘Independent’ Advisers to CDC Publicly Promoted Vaccines or Took Money From Pharma — or Both

Nine new members named to the committee that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on vaccine recommendations have financial ties to pharmaceutical companies or have worked with public health agencies to promote the COVID-19, RSV or HPV vaccines.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in mid-February appointed the new members to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which shapes U.S. vaccine policy.

Commenting on the new appointments, Children’s Health Defense (CHD) President Mary Holland said:

“ACIP has long been a rubber stamp for any and all vaccines Big Pharma wants to push. But the brazenness of the HHS-Big Pharma fusion has never been so much on display.

“The only silver lining in this grotesque display is that more and more people are waking up to the reality that ACIP has nothing to do with health and everything to do with profit.”

The ACIP is described as an independent, nonfederal expert body made up of professionals with clinical, scientific and public health expertise. The committee decides which vaccines should be recommended to the public, who should take them and how often — recommendations the CDC typically rubber stamps.

This external advisory committee includes a chair, an executive secretary, and 15 voting members — 14 medical experts and a lay member representing consumers.

It also includes a non-voting body that offers input composed of eight ex officio members from other federal health departments and liaison representatives from health-related professional organizations like the American Association of Pediatrics.

However, when the committee convened last week to make its spring recommendations, it was missing so many voting members that it lacked a quorum. Vacant committee spaces on the “independent” committee had to be temporarily filled by government employees — ex officio members can be sworn in as temporary voting members.

Over the last year, HHS struggled to fill eight vacancies. An additional four members will be needed when existing members’ four-year terms are up at the end of June.

As seats on the committee sat unfilled, industry news sites like StatNews suggested the committee “appears to be atrophying” and Medriva said there is an “unprecedented lack of expertise in the committee.”

When HHS finally announced the new members to fill the vacancies, it was also reported the new members would be filling spots at last week’s meeting. However, they had not yet taken their positions at the time the meeting occurred on Feb. 28-29.

A CDC spokesperson confirmed to The Defender that nine members have been appointed to the committee, including Dr. Helen Keipp Talbot, an infectious diseases researcher at Vanderbilt University who previously served on the committee from 2018 through 2022 and will rejoin the committee to serve as chair.

Members typically are not eligible for reappointment, but in Talbot’s case, the HHS provided a waiver to that existing policy.

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