US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm sold $1.6 million of holdings in the electric bus company Proterra shortly after Joe Biden visited the company.
As The Daily Fetched reported on Wednesday, Proterra has since filed for bankruptcy.
Granholm became a member of the company’s board of directors in 2017 and resigned after being confirmed as Secretary.
Michael Chamberlain, director of Protect The Public’s Trust, argued the sale of the holdings is an example of the Biden administration’s ethics issues.
“She served on the board of Proterra until she was confirmed as secretary, and then she inexplicably held on to stock options, as you mentioned, for an extended period of time, even until really the media pressure became too great, apparently, for her to be able to continue before she finally did sell those,” he told Just the News.
“And meanwhile, the Biden administration, President Joe Biden, Vice President Harris, they were promoting the company,” Chamberlain added.
“I believe the CEO made visits to the White House. It really, at that time, it really did not look good from an ethical perspective,” he said.
Biden appointed Proterra CEO Gareth Joyce to the White House Export Council in February 2023
As CNBC reported in January 2022, Granholm violated stock disclosure laws called The STOCK Act at least nine times.
The law restricts “insider trading” by members of the Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches of government.
On Monday, Proterra Inc announced that “market and macroeconomic headwinds” had forced it to seek Chapter 11 protections.
The electric school bus company added that future financing options will be worked out in Bankruptcy Court.
“The foundation we have built has set the stage for decarbonization across the commercial vehicle industry as a whole, and we recognize the great potential in all of our product offerings to enable this important transformation,” CEO Gareth Joyce said.
“This is why we are taking action to separate each product line through the Chapter 11 reorganization process to maximize their independent potential,” Joyce added.
He further explained that the company’s hurdles had “impacted our ability to efficiently scale all of our opportunities simultaneously,” and Proterra would be “sharpening our focus as a leading EV battery technology supplier for the benefit of our many stakeholders.”
Here is a video of Kamala Harris praising the electric bus compnay:
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