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92 Percent Of Kamala Harris’ Staff Left In Her First Three Years As VP


BY: MONROE HARLESS | JULY 23, 2024

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2024/07/23/92-percent-of-kamala-harris-staff-left-in-her-first-three-years-as-vp/

Kamala Harris sits at a table

Kamala Harris’ office has had a staggering 91.5 percent turnover rate since she became vice president, an investigation from government watchdog organization Open The Books (OTB) revealed on Monday. Of the 47 staff members hired when Harris took office in 2021, only four reportedly remained in her employment as of March 2024. 

The report comes as Biden’s X account announced he will “stand down” from his reelection campaign and “fully support” Harris as the new nominee. OTB utilized U.S. Senate disclosures to obtain records from the vice president’s office, including 2021 and 2024 payrolls. 

“Chaos reigns on the vice president’s staff,” wrote OTB founder Adam Andrzejewski. “Our auditors at OpenTheBooks quantified an extraordinarily high 91.5-percent staff turnover rate.”

Payrolls provide further insight into the “staff exodus” in Harris’ office. As The Atlantic reported in October 2023, Harris’ communications director, national security adviser, chief of staff, and numerous aides left within a year and a half of her taking office in January 2021. 

“Furthermore, the turnover chaos isn’t getting better. In the trailing 12-month period, 24 staffers left — that’s almost half the employees,” Andrzejewski wrote.

OTB’s investigation also revealed budget discrepancies and a lack of transparency from Harris’ office. As Andrzejewski said, “Kamala Harris, Office of Vice President, is committed to the opacity of its payrolls and all other office information.”

When OTB filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for Harris’ staff payroll in September 2021, a spokesman reportedly declined the request and claimed the vice president’s office was not subject to FOIA. When OTB replied with a request for any transparency Harris’ office could provide, the spokesman said Harris did “not have any information to share at this time.”

“The VP’s rejection makes her the least transparent elected office holder in the country,” Andrzejewski wrote in a 2021 Forbes article detailing the interaction. “Citizen’s ought to be concerned that the person next in line for the presidency is so unwilling to disclose how she spends their money.”

OTB’s investigation also revealed an over $2 million discrepancy in Harris’ allocation of taxpayer dollars.

“We calculated that for VP Harris’s 28 staff listed in the Senate report, the 2021 salaries added up to $2,334,223,” Andrzejewski wrote. But the vice president’s office “got $5 million for 23 full time staff in 2021 and requested over $6 million for 27 full time staff in 2022.”

Harris’ office reportedly refused to answer any questions from OTB regarding this inconsistency. OTB says its analysis reflects the dysfunction widely reported in the corporate media, which he says have called Harris’ office a “revolving door” where there’s been a “‘staff exodus’ of key aides ‘heading for the exits.’”

Staffers in Harris’ office have reported a toxic work environment since 2021, when The Washington Post spoke with 18 individuals in Harris’ orbit. Descriptions ranged from “uncomfortable” to “soul-destroying.”

“One of the things we’ve said in our little text groups among each other is what is the common denominator through all this and it’s her,” former Harris aide and Democrat strategist Gil Duran told the Post. Back in 2013, after just five months of working for Harris, he quit. “Who are the next talented people you’re going to bring in and burn through and then have [them] pretend they’re retiring for positive reasons.”

Others said Harris blamed staff for her lack of preparation.

“It’s clear that you’re not working with somebody who is willing to do the prep and the work,” a former anonymous staffer told the Post. “With Kamala you have to put up with a constant amount of soul-destroying criticism and also her own lack of confidence. So you’re constantly sort of propping up a bully and it’s not really clear why.”

Monroe Harless is a summer intern at The Federalist. She is a recent graduate of the University of Georgia with degrees in journalism and political science.

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Harvard President Gay Resigns


Tuesday, 02 January 2024 02:53 PM EST

Read more at https://www.newsmax.com/headline/harvard-antisemitism-claudine-gay/2024/01/02/id/1147929/

Harvard President Gay Resigns

Harvard President Claudine Gay said she would resign from her position on Tuesday, after her first months in the role were rocked by her congressional testimony about antisemitism on campus and allegations of plagiarism.

Gay had faced pressure to resign from Harvard’s Jewish community and some members of Congress over her comments at the Dec. 5 congressional hearing, and she has also faced several allegations of plagiarism for her academic work in recent months.

In a letter to the Harvard community, Gay said her decision to step down had been “difficult beyond words.”

“After consultation with members of the Corporation, it has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual.”

The Harvard Corporation, the university’s 11-member governing body, said in an email to the community that its members had accepted Gay’s resignation “with sorrow.”

Gay, former University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth testified before a U.S. House of Representatives committee on Dec. 5 about a rise in antisemitism on college campuses following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in October.

The trio declined to give a definitive “yes” or “no” answer to Republican Representative Elise Stefanik’s question as to whether calling for the genocide of Jews would violate their schools’ codes of conduct regarding bullying and harassment, saying they had to balance it against free speech protections.

More than 70 U.S. lawmakers signed a letter demanding that the governing boards of the three universities remove the presidents, citing dissatisfaction with their testimony.

Magill resigned after receiving backlash for her comments.

“Harvard knows that this long overdue forced resignation of the antisemitic plagiarist president is just the beginning of what will be the greatest scandal of any college or university in history,” Representative Stefanik said in a statement on Tuesday.

‘RACIST VITRIOL’

Despite the controversy ensnaring Gay, the Harvard Corporation last month reaffirmed its confidence that she could lead the school through a period of high tension over the war in the Middle East. It also said an independent review of Gay’s academic work found she had not committed research misconduct. She has submitted several corrections for citation errors in recent weeks.

Gay, who became the university’s first Black president six months ago, and the members of the Harvard Corporation said in their letters to the community on Tuesday that she had been subject to racist attacks.

Some of Gay’s critics, including billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, have argued that she was chosen for the role as part of the school’s effort to promote diversity rather than for her qualifications.

Ackman could not immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday. He reposted the Harvard Crimson’s story about Gay’s resignation on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

“It has been distressing to have doubt cast on my commitments to confronting hate and to upholding scholarly rigor — two bedrock values that are fundamental to who I am — and frightening to be subjected to personal attacks and threats fueled by racial animus,” Gay said in her statement.

The Harvard Corporation wrote that she had been subjected to “deeply personal and sustained attacks” that included “racist vitriol directed at her through disgraceful emails and phone calls.”

© 2024 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.

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Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon


waving flagCryin’ Time

October 1, 2015
URL of the original posting site: http://conservativebyte.com/2015/10/cryin-time
More-Crying-NRD-600
Indenification of Obama ObamaIranian-Flag-WORD-ART Liberals Dupe and Chains tyrants B2A_FvyCMAE14px The Lower you go In God We Trust freedom combo 2

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Dem on Secret Service director: ‘I think this lady has to go’


Obamacare

By Mario Trujillo / October 01, 2014, 08:13 am

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/219418-cummings-on-secret-service-director-i-think-this-lady-has-to-go

Throw-under-the-busRep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) on Wednesday suggested Secret Service Director Julia Pierson should resign, saying President Obama is not well served under her leadership.

The ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee said it was “very difficult for me to sleep last night” after the director’s testimony before the committee on Tuesday

Cummings said he came away from the meeting “extremely disappointed.”

“I’ve come to the conclusion that my confidence and my trust in this director, Ms. Pierson, has eroded. And I do not feel comfortable with her in that position,” he said on MSNBC.

That is a swing from just a day earlier, when he told reporters the “jury’s still out” on her tenure.

His comments were even more blunt during a radio interview with Roland Martin on Wednesday.

“I think this lady has to go,” Cummings reportedly said, referring to Pierson.

Cummings isn’t the only lawmaker calling for Pierson to resign or be fired.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) also said she should go in an interview with Fox on Tuesday night.

“I think it’s time that she be fired by the president of the United States or that she resign,” he said.

Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), a member of the Oversight Committee also called on Pierson to resign.

“I do not have confidence, especially given her answers of yesterday and the revelations of Atlanta, and then this continuing series of events, that it is probably best that she does step down,” Collins said on MSNBC on Wednesday.

He also criticized Pierson over a press release she admitted approving that failed to disclose how far the intruder made it into the White House.

“I was appalled by her answer to that question,” he said. “How could the director of the Secret Service approve a statement that was a lie?”

Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said on MSNBC Tuesday that he is not ready to call for Pierson’s resignation, but called the Atlanta elevator incident “jaw-dropping.”

“I want to give her an opportunity to complete her review and to provide, I hope, cogent recommendations for reform and corrective action,” he said. “But I have to say, it is an open question at the moment whether frankly she can continue in that job with any kind of competence.”

Pierson received a grilling on Capitol Hill over the security breach Sept. 19, when an intruder jumped the fence and made his way into the White House before being apprehended by agents.

New details emerged Monday about that incident. Cummings said those details have led to an erosion of public confidence in the director.

“No matter how wonderful Ms. Pierson may be, the public’s confidence is eroding,” he said on MSNBC. “There used to be a time where, if you thought about the Secret Service, you not dare do anything that might even make them think about you harming the president.” 

Other news emerged after the hearing, including reports that an armed security contractor with a criminal record was allowed on an elevator with Obama during a Sept. 16 trip to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Cummings said it seems the public is learning new stories about the Secret Service every week.

Cummings had expressed concern during the hearing that agents felt more comfortable talking to members of Congress rather than to their superiors.

“That has got to change,” he said at the time.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called for an independent investigation into the events surrounding the incident. Cummings and committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) are expected to ask the Department of Homeland Security to investigate.

UPDATE: 10:55 a.m.:

Cummings tweeted Wednesday morning that he has not decided about Pierson, but he is “not comfortable” with Obama’s safety. tweet

In a later interview with NPR, the congressman said he has not made a final decision on whether the director should resign. He is expected to talk with Pierson by phone later in the day.

This story was last updated at 12:37 p.m.

 

 

 

Thrown under the bus

 

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