Neera Tanden is perhaps President Biden’s most controversial Cabinet pick. As the outgoing president of the progressive interest group Center for American Progress, Tanden drove that group further left during her tenure. A lawyer and long-time Clinton political animal, Tanden carries a great deal of baggage. Her nomination hearing for director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) hit the rocks this week due to her history of disparaging tweets about the very senators who must vote to confirm her.
Perhaps as disturbing as Tanden’s complete lack of qualifications to lead OMB is her penchant for dabbling in dangerous election conspiracies. If you have issues and concerns with Sidney Powell and her wild claims about the 2020 presidential election, you should be similarly concerned about Neera Tanden.
Following the 2016 election, Tanden was all-in claiming Russians hacked election machines and changed votes in Trump’s favor — one might call it the original Dominion scandal.
She then pushed the idea that the Electoral College should refuse to honor the results of the 2016 election to deny President Trump his victory. CAP’s propaganda arm, Think Progress, joined her in this.
ThinkProgress has since deleted the article, but the Internet is forever.
Interestingly today during her Senate hearing, Tanden had this exchange with Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.):
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pennsylvania) asks Neera Tanden, citing her tweets about Russian meddling, if she thinks Trump was legitimately elected.
"Absolutely," she says.
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) February 10, 2021
As president of the Center for American Progress, Tanden aggressively pushed the same kind of conspiracy theories about the 2016 election that Democrats have accused every Republican from dogcatcher on up of doing following the 2020 election.
Which Neera Tanden answered Sen. Toomey today: the principled progressive spewing wacky collusion tropes, or a Clintonite political operative who will say anything to gain power in the Biden White House?
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