FIRST ON FOX: Republicans at the House Foreign Affairs Committee despatched a letter to Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry over studies his administrative center is “effectively outsourcing” American international policymaking to left-wing environmental teams.
House Foreign Affairs Committee rating member Michael McCaul, R-Texas, led the letter with the GOP individuals of his committee following Fox News Digital studies that inexperienced teams have been consulted and given a key position in crafting U.S. international coverage. The studies, in keeping with inside State Department emails, confirmed out of doors non-governmental organizations performing as an obvious intermediary in key international local weather coverage talks.
“We need to know the extent to which Special Envoy John Kerry is farming his work out to progressive environmentalists, which could be a violation of federal law,” McCaul informed Fox News Digital in a remark Friday.
In the letter, the lawmakers pointed to the studies “suggesting that your office is effectively outsourcing official policymaking functions of the U.S. government to progressive environmentalist groups, and/or utilizing them in an unlawful advisory capacity.”
ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS PLAY KEY ROLE IN BIDEN ADMIN FOREIGN POLICY, EMAILS SHOW
“As has been publicly reported, groups have demanded that the State Department elevate climate change above all national security, great power competition, and human rights considerations, to ‘the top of all [foreign policy] decisions,’” the Republicans wrote.
“They have also advised the Department that ‘anyone with a history of blocking climate action must be disqualified from senior international appointments,’” McCaul and his fellow GOP individuals endured.
In August, Fox News Digital reported that Kerry’s administrative center has consulted with a couple of left-wing environmental teams on a couple of events since President Biden took administrative center in January 2021. Immediately upon taking administrative center, Biden appointed Kerry to be the country’s first particular presidential envoy for local weather, a high-level State Department place which grants him a place at the White House National Security Council.
JOHN KERRY’S CLIMATE OFFICE RIFE WITH TIES TO FAR-LEFT GREEN GROUPS
Emails acquired via Fox News Digital by means of govt watchdog team Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) confirmed that staffers and advisers in Kerry’s administrative center actively sought the recommendation of distinguished teams just like the Sierra Club and the United Nations Foundation. His administrative center additionally scheduled Zoom briefings with such organizations.
“For an administration claiming to be guided by the science, there are more than a few indications that the input of their political allies may be a bigger driver of policy,” PPT Director Michael Chamberlain informed Fox News Digital on the time. “Little wonder that the American public’s trust in its government is in free fall.”
Fox News Digital then reported in September that further emails acquired via PPT confirmed environmental teams performing as an obvious go-between for the Biden management in world local weather discussions. The tale was once cited within the House Foreign Affairs GOP letter Thursday.
“The Department of State’s leadership in combating the global climate crisis is supported by diplomats, negotiators, and subject matter experts with diverse backgrounds and decades of knowledge and experience from the public sector, academia, NGOs, and the private sector,” a State Department spokesperson informed Fox News Digital after the second one record.
Kerry’s administrative center didn’t reply to a request for remark at the Republican letter Friday.
In the letter, McCaul and the opposite GOP lawmakers endured, soliciting for “additional clarity regarding your office’s interactions with these groups, your team’s solicitation of their advice, and the Department’s adoption of their recommendations.”
They additionally wrote the emails reported “suggest that your office has sent private updates regarding your foreign travel to a small, exclusive cadre of representatives of various non-profit organizations (NGOs), who remain better informed than the American people or the U.S. Congress regarding your whereabouts and policy agenda.”
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“The same correspondence shows that your senior staff has asked these NGOs to weigh in on which candidates the United States government should support to fill important leadership positions inside international organizations like the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). One candidate, whom an NGO representative described in emails as ‘horrible,’ went on to win a leadership seat at the OECD.”
“This complicates both present and future diplomatic engagements: Now that it is publicly known that he was viewed unfavorably by American groups with privileged access to U.S. decisionmakers, our working relationships with the OECD and the official’s host government could be jeopardized,” the Republicans warned.
The lawmakers mentioned it’s “one thing, of course, to occasionally consult with outside groups to fill in knowledge gaps and hear a variety of perspectives,” however a fully other scenario “to use individuals who have not gone through official vetting to form your shadow cabinet, and/or solicit their advice regularly when they have not been lawfully constituted as a federal advisory committee.”
McCaul and his fellow international affairs Republicans warned that after the latter scenario happens, “individuals with considerable sway over U.S. foreign policy are not accountable to the American public, and normal transparency into government processes is lost.”
JOHN KERRY’S OFFICE REDACTED EVERY STAFFER NAME IN FOIAED CORRESPONDENCE
“Functions that are inherently governmental – like the conduct of foreign relations and the determination of foreign policy – cannot be contracted out to friends and former colleagues of your staff,” they added. “Even informal arrangements that do not include financial remuneration would seem to violate the spirit, if not the letter, of this normal contracting rule.”
“Furthermore, elevating outsiders’ perspectives in the reported manner may have the unintended consequence of discounting or making less relevant those innovative policy ideas that have been provided through official Department channels.”
The lawmakers mentioned it was once “imperative” that Kerry “remind all employees and officials within the Department of their legal responsibility” to take the “appropriate measures” to “preserve all documents, communications, and other records” — together with digital ones — in line “with federal law, including the Federal Records Act and related regulations, that are related to House Foreign Affairs Committee members’ series of questions.”
“We request that you preserve all information that relates to Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (SPEC) communication, documents, and other records, created or disseminated from January 2021 to present, exchanged with representatives of, and/or referring or relating to, the following entities and individuals,” the lawmakers wrote in daring.
McCaul and the Republicans in particular demanded Kerry maintain the data of division actions with E3G, Performance Partners, The People’s Justice Council, Climate Nexus, the Center for American Progress, Oxfam America, the National Resources Defense Council, the Global Strategic Communications Council, the Global CCS Institute, the World Resources Institute, and Biden’s inexperienced power innovation senior marketing consultant John Podesta.
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“Specifically, this request should be construed as an instruction to preserve all documents, communications, and other information, including electronic information and metadata, that is or may be potentially responsive to a future congressional inquiry, request, investigation, or subpoena.”
“This includes preserving all compilations of documents that have already been gathered in response to requests, even if copies of individual documents may still exist elsewhere in the agency,” the lawmakers concluded the letter.
Joining McCaul at the letter are the GOP individuals of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, together with Reps. Mark Green of Tennessee, August Pfluger of Texas, and Young Kim of California.