Brother of Top Biden Aide Seeing Green as President Gives ‘Free Publicity’ To Client
GM paid Jeff Ricchetti $460,000 for lobbying for EV tax credits. Ethics watchdogs raise concerns about pay-to-play. President Joe Biden and Steve Ricchetti / Getty Pictures
Critics lambasted President Joe Biden Monday for his generosity “free publicity” to General Motors with a tweet featuring the company’s electric Hummer. But the president’s promotion actually cost the company a pretty penny.
General Motors paid Jeff Ricchetti ($460,000) to lobby Congress and White House for electric vehicle tax incentives. Biden was promoting his administration’s electric vehicle tax credit with Monday’s tweet, which featured a photo of the president behind the wheel of a GMC Hummer EV Pickup Edition 1.
My watch is that the great American road trip will be electrified.
You can now get a tax credit up to $7500 for an electric vehicle. pic.twitter.com/n3iZ9etL4A
— President Biden (@POTUS) January 30, 2023
Biden’s tweet is the latest return on General Motors’ investment in Jeff Ricchetti. In April 2021, Biden hosted a summit with General Motors CEO Mary Barra. He followed that up with a November 2021 visit to the company’s electric vehicle plant, where he first promoted the fully electric Hummer, which boosted reservations for the vehicle by sevenfold.
Some critics questioned why Biden keeps giving “free publicity” to the electric Hummer, noting that it is not even eligible for the $7,500 tax credit he cited in his tweet. Research also shows that the $108,700 truck produces more carbon dioxide than a typical gas-powered sedan.
Biden’s repeat promotion of the electric Hummer renewed concerns from ethics experts over General Motors’s cozy relationship with the White House.
“Business just keeps getting better for the brother of Biden’s top aide,” Caitlin Sutherland, the executive director of Americans for Public Trust, told the Washington Free Beacon. “This pattern of unfettered access is the exact opposite of Biden’s pledge to ‘restore ethics in government.’”
It’s not clear how many Hummers General Motors sold as a result of the president’s tweet on Monday. General Motors spokeswoman Jeannine Ginivan declined to share recent reservation information for the electric vehicle.
Through his firm, Ricchetti Incorporated, Jeff Ricchetti has lobbied Congress on behalf of General Motors for electric vehicle and charging station tax incentives and other
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