(NewsGlobal.com)- President Joe Biden has awarded one of his “closest friends” and big donors with a prestigious White House job as well as a bunch of federal contracts that have resulted in millions of dollars going into his pocket.
The Washington Free Beacon reviewed government records recently and found the evidence. Last September, the president appointed Joe Kiani to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Kiani is the CEO and founder of the Masimo Corporation, a medical technology company. Since Biden entered the White House in 2021, Masimo Corp. has received nearly $3 million worth of federal contracts, with funding coming from both the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense.
It’s ironic considering the council’s aim is to advise “the president on matters involving science, technology, education and innovation policy [and] provides the president with scientific and technical information that is needed to inform public policy.”
Informing public policy in this case must have meant convincing Biden that Masimo Corp. should receive these millions of dollars in federal contracts.
Over the last few years, Kiani became one of the biggest donors to Biden. In 2017 alone, his Masimo Foundation gave the Biden Foundation at least $1 million. That sum is on top of the $500,000 that Kiani and his wife gave to the now-president.
During Biden’s 2020 campaign for president, Kiani ended up directing $1 million to the Democrat’s campaign, and also hosted virtual and in-person fundraisers for the candidate.
The Masimo Foundation donated $1 million to the president’s inaugural committee, and Kiani donated $750,000 to Unite the Country, a super PAC that supports Biden.
The relationship between the two is apparently pretty deep. Biden called Kiani “one of my closest friends” while speaking at a conference in 2018 that was sponsored by one of the organizations that receives its funds from Kiani.
While he was vice president back in 2015, Biden also gave the keynote address at the Patient Safety, Science, and Technology Summit hosted by Kiani.
This whole situation has caught the attention of Republican Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina, who serves on the House Oversight Committee. He commented to the Free Beacon that he would look into this potential case of “cronyism.”
Norman said:
“Cronyism in any form is wrong. For someone who has spent almost 40 years in Washington, you’d think President Biden of all people would know that. Yet, here we are, another campaign donor receiving a post in the administration, this time on the prestigious President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
“It’s important to get to the bottom of this, and I’m happy to help lead that charge.”
Spending disclosures released by the federal government show that Masimo Corp. has received millions of dollars’ worth of contracts under former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, too.
However, the total amount of contracts he’s been awarded during the Biden’s administration’s one-plus year in the White House is on pace to well surpass the totals of the two previous administrations.
