For independent political observers, this WaPo article on Biden Administration hiring practices has potential significance:
Barely a week into office, President Biden made a promise that signaled a sharp break from his predecessor: No member of his family would be involved in government.
But that vow did not extend to his senior staff and their relatives. In the first few months of Biden’s presidency, at least five children of his top aides have secured coveted jobs in the new administration. They include two sons and a daughter of the White House counselor, the daughter of a deputy White House chief of staff and the daughter of the director of presidential personnel.
The pattern — which continued this week with the Treasury Department’s announcement that it was hiring J.J. Ricchetti, son of Biden counselor Steve Ricchetti — has drawn concerns from ethics experts, diversity advocates and others. They say it is disappointing that Biden didn’t shift even further from the practices of Donald Trump’s presidency, which they felt reeked of nepotism and cronyism.
I think the ethics experts have every right to be concerned. Good government is about hiring the best qualified, a positive statement, while avoiding hiring those with political connections where possible, which is a negative statement. Both are important, because the latter is a message that the corruption that comes with hiring family and friends with little to no regard for relevant expertise is not acceptable.
And Biden needs to send the message that we are committed to good government, rather than sliding into bad government, after the ethical disaster that was the Trump Administration. So this qualifies as a disappointment for me. This is only somewhat ameliorated by the highly qualified nature of some of those hires:
Stephanie Psaki has a Ph.D. in public health from Johns Hopkins University and her work has been published in leading journals such as The Lancet, according to her HHS biography. Medina is a former deputy undersecretary of Commerce for oceans and atmosphere and former special assistant to the secretary of Defense.
Others also come with a long list of credentials, such as White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan’s wife, Maggie Goodlander, who works as counsel to Attorney General Merrick Garland, for whom she clerked when he was an appellate judge. Sullivan’s brother, Tom Sullivan, is a State Department official and Tom’s wife, Rose Sullivan, is an official at the Department of Health and Human Services.
Something to keep an eye on.
