Tag: conflict of interest

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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JULIAN ASSANGE JUDGE PREVIOUSLY ACTED FOR MI6

One of the two High Court judges who will rule on Julian Assange’s bid to stop his extradition to the US represented the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and the Ministry of Defence, Declassified has found.  

Justice Jeremy Johnson has also been a specially vetted barrister, cleared by the UK authorities to access top secret information.

Johnson will sit with Dame Victoria Sharp, his senior judge, to decide the fate of the WikiLeaks co-founder. If extradited, Assange faces a maximum sentence of 175 years.

His persecution by the US authorities has been at the behest of Washington’s intelligence and security services, with whom the UK has deep relations.

Assange’s journalistic career has been marked by exposing the dirty secrets of the US and UK national security establishments. He now faces a judge who has acted for, and received security clearance from, some of those same state agencies.

As with previous judges who have ruled on Assange’s case, this raises concerns about institutional conflicts of interest.

Exactly how much Johnson has been paid for his work for government departments is not clear. Records show he was paid twice by the Government Legal Department for his services in 2018. The sum was over £55,000. 

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Kurt Cobain coroner boasted he was ‘intimate’ with rocker’s wife Courtney Love & ‘unqualified’ to carry out autopsy

THE coroner who carried out Kurt Cobain’s autopsy boasted he’d been intimate with the Nirvana star’s wife Courtney Love, it has been sensationally claimed.

Bestselling author Ian Halperin says medical examiner Dr. Nikolas Hartshorne admitted to him that he had a “conflict of interest” when determining that Cobain killed himself at his home in Seattle.

Halperin claims Dr. Hartshorne – who died in a BASE jumping accident in Switzerland in 2002 – was a Nirvana and Courtney Love super fan who lacked the necessary expertise in toxicology.

He exclusively told The U.S. Sun that the medical examiner confessed during an interview with him in 1996 that he should have been recused from the autopsy.

The bombshell allegations come after a purported copy of Cobain’s autopsy report – which has never before been made public due to Washington state privacy laws – was leaked online last week.

The alleged report confirms that Cobain died by suicide after turning a shotgun on himself.

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Before investigating Hunter Biden, prosecutor worked with brother Beau

When Delaware’s acting U.S. attorney David C. Weiss celebrated a fraud conviction in 2010, he was joined by a key partner in the case: Beau Biden, the state’s attorney general.

Weiss worked with Joe Biden’s eldest son to hash out prosecution strategies. “We will continue to aggressively pursue all types of fraud in order to protect the public,” Weiss said in his part of a statement with Beau Biden on the fraud case.

Today, that little-known history highlights the deep challenges Weiss faces as he pursues a newly recharged investigation into Beau’s brother, Hunter Biden, in a small state long politically dominated by their father.

Although Democrats point to Weiss’s appointment by President Donald Trump as evidence of his independence, the full story of his career is more nuanced, as he spent two years as acting U.S. attorney under President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden and then remained as a top deputy for the remainder of their term.

Weiss, who was named special counsel on Aug. 11, is now confronting blowback from formerly supportive Republicans, who accuse him of offering Hunter Biden an unfairly soft plea deal on tax and gun charges. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) summarized that view when he said on Fox News that “Mr. Weiss has been compromised.” A spokesman for House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said Weiss “can’t be trusted.” Whistleblowers interviewed by the GOP have also accused Weiss and the Justice Department of limiting the scope of the Hunter Biden probe, a claim Weiss has denied.

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Prosecutor Told Hunter Biden He Loved Him During US Attorney’s Investigation Into First Son

The ongoing investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax affairs and overseas business dealings has come under increased scrutiny recently, revealing disturbing connections that raise serious questions about conflicts of interest.

According to a report from Fox News, a thorough examination of Chief Deputy Attorney General of Delaware Alexander Snyder-Mackler, his association with the Biden family, and the investigation into Hunter Biden brings to light a concerning web of relationships that demands closer scrutiny.

Mackler’s long-standing ties with the Bidens cannot be overlooked, having served as Joe Biden’s legal counsel during his vice presidency and as a press secretary during the former senator’s tenure between 2007 and 2008.

Perhaps even more significant is the fact, Mackler’s stint as an assistant United States attorney in the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s office coincided with the federal inquiry into Hunter Biden’s financial affairs.

While the specifics of Mackler’s involvement in the probe remain elusive, his prominent position in the office investigating the president’s son raises legitimate concerns about impartiality.

Intriguingly, emails retrieved from Hunter Biden’s laptop, verified by Fox News, depict a close relationship between Mackler and Hunter Biden, with Mackler signing off one email with “Love you brother.”

Although Mackler insisted he was unaware of the investigation during his tenure as a federal prosecutor, the timing and nature of their communication after the probe’s initiation could raise eyebrows.

Despite the uncertainty surrounding Mackler’s direct role in the investigation, his current position as the Deputy Attorney General of Delaware and his multiple visits to the White House during the Biden administration inevitably raise questions about potential conflicts of interest. Notably, one-on-one meetings with President Biden and other high-ranking officials further add to the complexity of the situation.

Recent developments in Hunter Biden’s case, such as his initial promise to plead guilty, followed by an unexpected plea of not guilty, fuel suspicions of corruption and political maneuvering.

This shift has not gone unnoticed by the public, who seek clarity and transparency in this high-profile investigation. The denials of claims made by IRS whistleblowers, alleging interference with the investigation into Hunter Biden, only deepen the skepticism surrounding the case.

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