NLPC Staff

Biden Warp Speed Pick David Kessler Has History of Overcharging Taxpayers for Travel Expenses

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David Kessler

Dr. David Kessler, co-chair of President-elect Biden’s COVID task force, has been chosen to replace Dr. Moncef Slaoui as Chief Scientific Advisor to Operation Warp Speed, who has agreed to stay on a month to help Kessler with the transition.  Dr. Kessler had resigned as President Clinton’s Food and Drug Administration Commissioner in late November 1996 after Clinton’s re-election following the controversy of his overbilling travel expenses during his tenure. 

The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), an ethics watchdog group, which led the investigation into Kessler’s travel expenses when Kessler was FDA Commissioner, had called upon Biden in a November 18, 2020 press statement not to appoint Kessler as HHS Secretary, who was at that time a leading contender for the post. Instead, Biden chose Xavier Becerra as his HHS Secretary and this appointment appears to be a consolation prize.  Notably, the critical position of the Commissioner … Read More ➡

Issue of Big Tech Censorship ‘Will Not Go Away’

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NLPC Chairman Peter Flaherty is interviewed by Steve Gruber on America’s Voice about Big Tech censorship in the wake of Twitter’s permanent suspension of President Trump and the deplatforming of Twitter alternative Parler.… Read More ➡

Is Secretary of State Nominee Antony Blinken Compromised by Chinese Money to Biden Center?

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Real America’s Voice 1/5/21- Paul Kamenar, Counsel to the National Legal and Policy Center, is interviewed by Amanda Head about the group’s Foreign Agent Registration Act Complaint against the Biden Center at the University of Pennsylvania, Hunter Biden and the Truman National Security Project. Antony Blinken, managing director of the Biden Center, will be nominated to be Secretary of State.… Read More ➡

Biden’s NSA, Veterans Affairs Nominees Scrubbed Website of Foreign Connections

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VA Nominee Denis McDonough

From the Washington Free Beacon by Yuichiro Kakutani:

A consulting firm linked to incoming Biden officials removed references to its foreign dealings in the closing weeks of the election.

Both Jake Sullivan, President-elect Joe Biden’s incoming national security adviser, and Denis McDonough, Biden’s pick to run the Department of Veterans Affairs, have served as partners at Macro Advisory Partners, a consulting firm that says it helps clients manage geopolitical risk.

Until early November, the firm advertised its work helping a financial services company expand into the Middle East, according to archived versions of the website. The firm said it helped its clients manage the “geopolitical and economic volatility” in Middle Eastern markets by drawing on the extensive policy expertise of Macro Advisory Partners employees.

“The intersection of geopolitics, policy and politics is defining the long-term prospects for financial services in the Middle East,” the website said … Read More ➡

What Does the Constitution Mean to Amazon?

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Jeff Bezos

This opinion article by NLPC’s Carl Horowitz appeared on Townhall.com:

Of all the ways that a Biden presidency and its radical apparatchiks could “reset” America’s priorities, none would be as lethal as an overhaul or outright repeal of the Constitution. Such an event seems unlikely for now. But should it materialize, Amazon will have enabled it. How so?

On October 16, Amazon Prime Video debuted a film version of the Broadway stage production What the Constitution Means to Me. Conceived, written, and starring veteran playwright-actress Heidi Schreck, the play, mostly a monologue, ran for a few months during 2019, packing the Helen Hayes Theater. It won rave reviews from “woke” audiences and critics, receiving two Tony nominations and a Pulitzer nomination. Amazon, sufficiently impressed, bought the movie rights. Marielle Heller (The Diary of a Teenage Girl, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood) directs the … Read More ➡

On Tax Return, Group Did Not Disclose Payments to Husband of VA Official

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Barrett Bogue

As we noted recently, it looks like “critics” of for-profit colleges are up to their old tricks. A career Veterans Affairs (VA) bureaucrat, Charmain Bogue, failed to disclose payments to her husband by an special interest group that was pushing her to block veterans from using their G.I. Bill benefits at the school that they believe works best for them.

Now, newly disclosed tax filings raise questions about why the group—Veterans Education Success (VES)—failed to disclose its contract payments to Barrett Bogue or his consulting firm while VES was urging his wife to limit veterans’ educational choices.

Ultimately, the VA “backed down” in July, but in March, the VA had initially announced it would do exactly what VES had asked Charmain Bogue to do—suspend enrollment of GI bill students in certain schools. And, VES was somehow among the first to get the news, praising the … Read More ➡

David Kessler, Co-Chair of Biden’s COVID Task Force and Possible HHS Secretary, Has History of Overcharging Taxpayers for His Travel as Uncovered by Ethics Watchdog Group

Posted on by NLPC Staff

David Kessler, co-chair of Joseph Biden’s COVID-19 task force, and a leading candidate to be his Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, resigned as President Clinton’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner in late November 1996 (after Clinton’s re-election) amid controversy for overbilling his travel expenses during his tenure and shortly after a court upheld a subpoena for his deposition in a major FDA case.

The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), which led the investigation into Kessler’s travel expenses when Kessler was FDA Commissioner, is calling upon Joe Biden to dismiss Kessler from his COVID task force and remove him from consideration for HHS Secretary.

NLPC’s investigation included hundreds of FOIA requests for Kessler’s travel vouchers and itineraries over a five-year period that were turned over to the House of Representatives Oversight Subcommittee of the Commerce Committee at the time, which launched an investigation, including a referral to the … Read More ➡