Did energy secretary Jennifer Granholm lie to Congress?

Energy secretary Jennifer Granholm has admitted to misleading Congress, in an apparent violation of the US Code that can carry a sentence of up to five years to prison.

In a Friday news dump filled just hours after the news of former president Donald Trump’s indictment, Granholm confessed to making a false statement before the Senate Energy and National Resources Committee on April 20. 

At issue is Granholm telling Senator Josh Hawley that she owns no individual stocks, “whereas I should have said that I did not own any conflicting stocks,” she wrote in a letter shared with E&E News. Granholm also said she failed to disclose that her husband Daniel Mulhern owned thousands of dollars of Ford stock while her department plowed hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts into the auto company, an admission that is, at minimum, ethically dubious.

With Granholm at the helm, the administration has put Ford front and center in its push for mass vehicle electrification. In one incident, Biden hosted an electric vehicle summit with executives from Ford and other auto manufacturers, but snubbed Tesla, the world’s largest manufacturer of electric vehicles. 

“Seems odd that Tesla wasn’t invited,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said at the time. 

In February, while Granholm’s husband Mulhern — who works as an energy consultant with companies such as Ford — owned Ford stock, she praised the company’s multi-billion dollar plans to build an electric vehicle battery plant, calling it a “BFD.” She and transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg famously drove around in an electric Ford Mustang Mach-E. 

The fact that Granholm’s husband was holding on to Ford stock until May 2023 also suggests that now-White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates was being optimistic when he said that Mulhern would divest from his stocks over two years ago. 

“As I was not previously aware of the asset, I did not report my spouse’s financial interest on my two prior Public Financial Disclosure Reports, nor was it included in the other paperwork associated with my nomination,” Granholm wrote of the Ford stock. “If it had been reported, the value would have been reported as ‘$1,001-$15,000’ and the income amount would have been reported as ‘None (or less than $201).’”

For some, these new revelations cast Granholm’s previous work in an even more troublesome light. Michael Chamberlain, the executive director of Protect the Public’s Trust, filed a complaint against Granholm after watching her dole out contracts to companies tied to Proterra, the electric vehicle battery company on whose board she sat of and that she owned millions of dollars of stock in. That same day, Granholm handed out tens of millions of dollars in contracts to Ford, in which her husband owned thousands of dollars of stock.

Chamberlain notes that Granholm’s Ford lovefest looks highly problematic in light of this news. “When we filed our complaint against Secretary Granholm for participating in a grant that awarded funds to companies tied to Proterra, little did we know it was much, much worse,” he told The Spectator. “This is Ethics 101. Any investments he has are imputed to her, so it is just as if she owned this stock herself.” 

While Granholm did not disclose what specific stocks she still owned, her stock portfolio has caused her headaches in the past. According to Business Insider, she “violated a federal conflicts-of-interest and transparency law by improperly reporting up to a quarter-million dollars in stock sales.” Her purchases included Gilead Sciences, whose stock soared during the coronavirus pandemic. 

“This isn’t some sophisticated thing that got missed,” North Dakota congressman Kelly Armstrong told The Spectator. “It’s pretty damn simple. She owned them personally. Her husband owns stock in Ford. How did this not get vetted during confirmation?”

During her relatively quiet confirmation, Granholm was asked about her relationship with Proterra. Senator John Barrasso was one of the only senators to press Granholm on her financial ties to the politically-connected company, whose stock has tanked in recent months, despite Granholm violating her ethics pledge to promote it. 

Some see a pattern emerging. “Secretary Granholm has repeatedly misled the public and elected officials about her many investments, including millions of dollars that were in direct conflict with her role at the Department of Energy,” Caitlin Sutherland, executive director of the Americans for Public Trust watchdog, said.

Granholm’s Capitol Hill critics are keen to look into her conflicts of interest, too. “From owning stock in Proterra to promoting a company that her husband is a shareholder in, Secretary Granholm’s actions scream conflict of interest,” Oklahoma representative Stephanie Bice told The Spectator. “Sadly, many people in this administration think they are above the law.”

“It’s really binary at this point. She’s either incompetent or lying,” said Armstrong, who sits on the House Oversight Committee.

Granholm’s problematic behavior in office has raised congressional eyebrows for years. In one instance, Armstrong’s Oversight colleagues wrote to Granholm alleging a “pattern of ethical issues” under her tenure, including how one of her deputies, Kelly Speakes-Backman, “acted inappropriately” by promoting the interests of her former employer in her official government role, as reported by The Spectator. 

“This is my problem with this administration and the mainstream media in general,” Armstrong said of Granholm’s Ford stock snafu. “No follow up. No questions about her also failing to disclose her husband’s stock twice in a company that squarely falls under her authority. She gave false testimony under oath. Issuing a statement six weeks later without any explanation is unacceptable.”