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Donors Fume: ‘It's Bullshi*' Biden Hasn't Called About Ambassadorships
[Daily Beest] They wrote massive checks. They encouraged their deepest-pocketed friends to do the same. They sat through Zoom concerts with James Taylor and Zoom roundtables hosted by Diane Lane and helped pay for an inauguration they didn’t even get to attend.Now, some of President Joe Biden’s most generous financial backers want what’s coming to them: an ambassadorship—both extraordinary and plenipotentiary, if possible. And they’re getting sick of waiting. "It’s bullshit," one Democratic fundraiser vented. "The number of asks over the course of the campaign, and over the course of the transition, and let’s not even talk about the Zoom convention, and they can’t even remember to make a phone call to the people who kept the lights on." From a practical standpoint, delays in official nominations are understandable. Nearly two-thirds of Biden’s Cabinet secretary nominations are currently stuck in the confirmation logjam caused by the impeachment trial of his predecessor, and vacant ambassadorial positions are currently being minded by the career foreign service officials who generally do the real diplomacy work anyway. Although Biden has not made any nominations to ambassadorial posts beyond career diplomat Linda Thomas-Greenfield to the United Nations, he is still on pace with former President Barack Obama, who did not name his first ambassadorial nominee until March 2009. But in interviews with half a dozen deep-pocketed bundlers who helped Biden’s campaign shatter fundraising records, as well as two former ambassadors, The Daily Beast found that this explanation—and the lack of any communication from the White House about whether potential nominees might want to begin preparing financial disclosures or start brushing up on their French—is wearing thin. Posted by: Besoeker 2021-02-14 |
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