Calls for energy secretary to resign over ethics violations grow louder

The Department of Energy was besieged with ethics complaints this week as energy secretary Jennifer Granholm stares down accusations of corruption and demands from Congress that she fire Christopher Smith, a top aide and former Ford lobbyist.

Senator John Barrasso, one of the most powerful Senate Republicans, faulted Granholm for “repeated lapses in upholding basic ethical standards” and demanded she “remove Ford’s lobbyist from [her] advisory board,” while laying out how Ford has basically taken over the Energy Department.

“Just over two months after Ford’s top lobbyist was appointed to the [Secretary of Energy Advisory Board], the department announced a $9.2 billion loan to Ford Motor Company, the largest single investment in the history of the department’s Loan Program Office,” Barrasso, the ranking member of the Senate’s Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, wrote to Granholm. “Before funds are disbursed, this loan, just as every other LPO loan, is approved by you, personally.”

While it makes sense that Ford, which is leaning ever more into the electric car business, should have close ties to the Energy Department, there’s concern that Ford has too much influence — especially because Granholm’s husband owned thousands of dollars of stock in Ford while she was doling out tens of millions of dollars to the company.

While Barrasso mostly focused on the possible improper role that Ford’s former lobbyist may have played in his company receiving billions of dollars from the Energy Department, he also noted that Granholm’s husband owning thousands of dollars of Ford stock may be illegal.

To Granholm’s critics, the oldest influence imaginable is at play here. “It’s about the exact same thing that drives almost everything in this town: money,” Representative Kelly Armstrong, who sits on the House’s Energy and Commerce Committee, told The Spectator. “Having Ford as a board member, having Secretary Granholm fail to disclose ownership of Ford stock and having Ford get a $9 billion loan from DoE reeks of conflict of interest.” Armstrong’s fellow E&C member, August Pfluger, said that Granholm “should be wholly focused on bolstering our energy supply and lowering costs for all Americans, not doling out electric vehicle subsidies to companies her family is invested in.”

Hours before Barrasso’s missive to Granholm, the watchdog group Protect the Public’s Trust wrote to the Energy Department’s inspector general demanding an investigation into Granholm’s “blatant violation of her ethics obligations.” The group wrote that Granholm’s violations are “egregious and clear-cut” and that because her “husband’s investments are imputed to her, this means Secretary Granholm had a direct financial interest in one of the companies to which her agency granted millions of dollars from a program she participated in personally and substantially.” Granholm’s husband, Daniel Mulhern, owned around $2,000 of Ford stock during her time in office.

Perhaps most concerning, PPT noted that Granholm “appeared in a cringeworthy video with transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg produced by DoE that appears to endorse and promote a Ford product.”

The latest barrage of criticisms levied at Granholm could spur an internal investigation by her department’s inspector general — and murmurs are growing that she may need to resign because of repeated ethical failures. “The ethical lapses and troubling disclosures Secretary Granholm has been forced to make, and the ones she’s failed to make, set off practically every oversight alarm the Congress has,” Representative Darrell Issa said. “We’re a long way from getting to the bottom of her clear conflicts of interest. She should strongly consider resigning.”