While President Joe Biden promised that none of his family members would receive government jobs, that hasn’t extended to his top tier of advisers, whose children and other family members have gotten administration gigs.
At least five children of his top aides have gotten jobs, according to a report Friday in The Washington Post.
Relatives of other aides – including Chief of Staff Ron Klain’s wife and press secretary Jen Psaki’s sister – have also secured high-level administration jobs or nominations.
White House counselor Steve Ricchetti, deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed and presidential personnel office director Cathy Russell each have at least one direct family member working for the Biden administration.
The hirings have infuriated ethics experts, who hoped Biden would move away from the hiring practices of former President Donald Trump, who tapped his daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner as two of his top-tier advisers.
The scrutiny on hiring practices was triggered in part by the Treasury Department’s announcement last week that it was hiring J.J. Ricchetti, son of Biden counselor Steve Ricchetti, leading to accusations of nepotism.
J.J. Ricchetti, a recent college graduate with no other experience listed on his department bio, will be a special assistant to the Treasury’s office of legislative affairs.
A White House official said that the administration had prioritized hiring volunteers from the campaign, such as J.J.
Steve Ricchetti’s daughter, Shannon, a 2016 college graduate, also works at the White House, serving as the deputy associate director of the office of the White House social secretary.
The Post reported that she secured the job after working at the Aspen Institute and for the Biden-Harris transition team.
Steve Ricchetti’s son Daniel, who has more work experience, serves as a senior adviser in the office of the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.
He spent seven years working on Capitol Hill, on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, The Post said.
Russell, the director of presidential personnel in the White House, has a daughter, Sarah Donilon, who graduated college in 2019 and works for the White House National Security Council.
Her uncle is Mike Donilon, a White House senior adviser.
Reed, a deputy White House chief of staff and longtime Biden confidant, has a daughter, Julia Reed, who graduated college in 2015 and works as Biden’s day scheduler.
Psaki’s sister Stephanie Psaki was appointed a senior adviser at the Health and Human Services Department in March, and Klain’s wife, Monica Medina, was nominated for assistant secretary of state focused on oceans and the environment.
However, both have extensive experience in their fields.
Same with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s family members.
His wife, Maggie Goodlander, works as counsel for Attorney General Merrick Garland.
She formerly clerked for Garland when he was an appellate judge.
Sullivan’s brother, Tom, is a State Department official and his wife Rose Sullivan, is an official at the Department of Health and Human Services.
Still former ethics chief in the Obama administration Walter Shaub accused Biden of thumbing his nose at government ethics with the prevalence of family ties among his administration’s hires.
‘I’m sorry, I know some folks don’t like hearing any criticism of him. But this royally sucks. I’m disgusted,’ tweeted Shaub, who led the Office of Government Ethics from 2013 to 2017.
‘A lot of us worked hard to tee him up to restore ethics to government and believed the promises. This is a a real ‘f*** you’ to us – and government ethics,’ he added.
Talking to The Post, Shaub also asked, ‘In a country that had just come through a pandemic, how can these children of political appointees be the only people who are qualified for employment?’
He also opined that ‘”not as bad as Trump” cannot be the new standard.