FIRST ON FOX: Nine of President Biden’s executivesecretaries received failing grades for their lack of calendar transparency, according to a government watchdog group.
Protect the Public Trust, a federal government watchdog organization, released their report on Tuesday, painting an opaque picture of the Biden administration’s Cabinet.
Twelve federal agencies received a failing grade for calendar transparency, with nine of the flunking agencies being headed by one of Biden’s Cabinet secretaries.
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WASHINGTON, DC – APRIL 07: U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo speaks as White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki looks on during a daily press briefing at the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House April 7, 2021 in Washington, DC. Psaki held the briefing to answer questions from members of the press. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
( Alex Wong/Getty Images)
“Public calendars can be a very useful tool in shedding light on an agency’s decision-making process,” Protect the Public’s Trust director Michael Chamberlain said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
“Conversely, when important details are missing or large chunks of time are not provided at all, the public is left to wonder what the agency is trying to hide,” Chamberlain continued. “The lack of information made available at so many agencies stands in stark contrast to the administration’s claims to be the most transparent in history.”
According to the report obtained by Fox News Digital, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was the only agency to receive an “A” grade.
A press release from Protect the Public’s Trust said the EPA’s grade came “with areas for improvement concerning proactively providing detailed information on the topics and attendees for Administrator Michael Regan’s meetings.”
FILE – In this May 11, 2021 file photo Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm speaks during a press briefing at the White House in Washington. The damned-if-you-pay-damned-if-you-don’t dilemma on ransomware payments has left U.S. officials fumbling about how to respond. While the Biden administration "strongly discourages" paying, it recognizes that failing to pay would be suicidal for some victims. Granholm said this month that she is in favor of banning payments. "But I don’t know whether Congress or the president is." (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
Two agencies, the Departments of Defense and Labor, received “B” grades for their calendar transparency and four agencies — the Departments of the Interior, Education, State and Treasury — received “C” grades, with the Interior Department revised from a “D.”
“Twelve of the agencies – the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Transportation, and Veterans Affairs, as well as the Office of Personnel Management, Small Business Administration, and U.S. Agency for International Development provide no easily-accessible public schedule or calendar for their agency head,” a press release from Protect the Public’s Trust obtained by Fox News Digital read.
“Some agencies’ current lack of transparency stands in contrast to the level demonstrated by their predecessors in the Trump and Obama administrations,” the release continued.
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President-elect Joe Biden speaks as he announces former South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg as his nominee for transportation secretary during a news conference at The Queen theater in Wilmington, Del., Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020. (Kevin Lamarque/Pool via AP)
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Biden moved to make transparency a central tenet of his administration, going as far to tell White House press secretary Jen Psaki to bring “truth and transparency back to the briefing room.”
Time has shown this tenet to be less than central to the administration, however, with less than transparent practices plaguing the administration in the form of a lack of transparency regarding the southern border crisis and Hunter Biden’s eyebrow-raising art deals.
