A top official in President Joe Biden’s administration has admitted to lying to Congress when she claimed not to own individual stocks.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Graholm, a Biden appointee, told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on April 20 that she did not own individual stocks, instead owning mutual funds.

Granholm said in a letter on June 9 to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) that she was not truthful during the Capitol Hill appearance.

“I mistakenly told the Committee that I did not own any individual stocks, whereas I should have said that I did not own any conflicting stocks,” Granholm wrote in the missive, which was obtained and reviewed by The Epoch Times.

Granholm said she divested from assets that could be in conflict with her duties as part of being confirmed as energy secretary but that she retained stocks that government ethics officials determined would not conflict with those duties.

She has since sold those stocks.

“In order to make my financial holdings consistent with my testimony, on May 18, 2023, I divested my remaining stock holdings which consisted of stock in six companies, even though these assets were deemed non-conflicting,” Granholm said.

Granholm did not identify the companies. She said they would be identified on her annual disclosure report, which is expected to be available in mid-June.

The Department of Energy and Manchin, the chair of the energy panel, did not respond to requests for comment.

“Secretary Granholm lied to the committee about her family’s stock holdings,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the top Republican on the committee, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement.

“This comes after her failure to follow basic ethics and disclosure rules. This is a troubling pattern. It is unacceptable,” he added.

Granholm violated stock disclosure rules by listing stock sales in 2022 months later than required, she acknowledged to the Senate previously. She also violated the Hatch Act when she endorsed Democrats while making an official appearance.

Granholm did not appear to be under oath when she made the false statement to the panel in April, according to video footage of the hearing. Most witnesses testifying before the Senate are not sworn in.

One federal law prohibits making false statements under oath that they do not believe to be true. Another law bars “knowingly and willfully” making false statements “in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States.” Violations of either can land a person up to five years in prison.

The U.S. Department of Justice rarely brings cases against officials who lie, regardless of whether they’re under oath.

Former President Donald Trump became one of the rare exceptions this week when he was charged with making false statements and other crimes.

The department and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.

“Granholm lied to me on April 20—and it took the Administration 6 full weeks to admit it. Brazen,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who was questioning Granholm when she made the false statement, wrote on Twitter. “It is time to BAN all senior executive branch officials and all members of Congress from owning & trading stock.”

Granholm also disclosed in the new letter that Ford stock her husband and she held in retirement accounts was sold on March 22, 2021, during the confirmation process and that she “believed that the divestiture of Ford was complete.”

But she learned in May 2023 that her husband, Daniel Mulhern, continued holding Ford stock in a separate account, she said.

That stock was sold for $2,457.89 on May 15.

“As I was not previously aware of the asset, I did not report my spouse’s financial interest on my two prior Public Financial Disclosure Reports, nor was it included in the other paperwork associated with my nomination,” Granholm wrote.

She added: “As a public servant, I take very seriously the commitment to hold myself to the highest ethical standards, and I regret the accidental omission of my spouse’s interest in Ford. This is a commitment I made to you, the President, and most importantly the American people. My spouse and I have double-checked our financial assets, and there are no other reportable assets that were omitted from my financial disclosure report.”

Her utter failure to invigorate electric cars has actually turned into the destruction of the electric car market under her leadership.

We have been swimming upstream for years here at American Thinker, arguing that conversion of the automobile fleet to electric vehicles is a mistake, harming the environment more than helping it, and utterly impractical for a variety of reasons, including charging time and an entirely inadequate electrical grid, already at the breaking point.

Yet the “green” image associated with EVs (and the subsidies) continue, impervious to the reality.  With the sole exception of Toyota, the auto industry has bought in to the conversion, even as losses mount for almost everyone but Tesla.

However, there are signs that the gravity of the practical problems with E.V. conversion are sinking in.  Rowan Atkinson, who has become a global icon portraying “Mr. Bean,” a character Atkinson describes as “a child in a man’s body,” is publicly raising these questions.  Daniel Y. Ting writes in the Epoch Times (paywalled but available to AT readers by special arrangement):

The actor and comedian behind the popular Mr. Bean character has called on drivers to hold off buying an electric vehicle (EV), saying the environmental benefits do not stack up.

Rowan Atkinson, a long-time motor enthusiast with a degree and master’s in electrical engineering, said current EV technology was more harmful to the environment than it was worth.

“Increasingly, I’m feeling that our honeymoon with electric cars is coming to an end, and that’s no bad thing: we’re realising that a wider range of options need to be explored if we’re going to properly address the very serious environmental problems that our use of the motor car has created,” Atkinson wrote in The Guardian newspaper.

He pointed to figures released by automotive giant Volvo revealing that greenhouse gas emissions during the EV production process were 70 percent higher than building a petrol car. (snip)

“The problem lies with the lithium-ion batteries fitted currently to nearly all-electric vehicles: they’re absurdly heavy, huge amounts of energy are required to make them, and they are estimated to last only upwards of 10 years.

One the prominent features of the Mr. Bean comedy was a Mini car that was rolled out for a celebration of the show’s 25th anniversary at Buckingham Palace.

REVEALED: Biden’s sticky-fingered non-binary nuclear waste guru Sam Brinton was on taxpayer-funded business trip when he stole woman’s baggage from Vegas airport

YouTube screen grab (cropped).

It’s a small step, perhaps, but when a very popular and widely admired entertainer feels that it is safe to dissent from the orthodoxy on electric vehicles, it is a sign of progress — the kind that progressives hate.

From The Epoch Times

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• Carlson Questions Obama’s ‘Highly Creepy Personal Life’
• ‘Moral Force’ ProPublica Under Fire For Taking Millions From Secret Donors They Court At Ritzy Parties
• ‘Zuckerberg Must Explain’: EU Demands Answers On ‘Instagram Pedophile Network’

Biden Admin. Splashing $1.7 Billion on Electric and Low-Emission Buses Owned By Biden DOE Boss

SIMON KENT