White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain‘s wife, Monica Medina, has been selected as President Joe Biden‘s newly-created Special Envoy for Biodiversity and Water Resources.
To steal a tongue-in-cheek phrase from New England radio legend Howie Carr, Medina was “chosen after a nationwide search,” I’m sure. We actually don’t know because the State Department refused to say.
When asked point blank if there was a nationwide search process, a State Department spokesperson skirted the question and instead claimed this wasn’t a new position at all.
“The Special Envoy for Biodiversity and Water Resources is not a new position but rather a new designation by the Secretary of State of an existing Senate-confirmed appointee to lead on these issues,” the spokesperson said. “Assistant Secretary Medina was designated for this role given the overlap with her work as head of the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs.”
As for what exactly she’ll do under this “new designation”? According to The Washington Post, she is now the first ever diplomat for plants and animals.
“As temperatures rise and habitats shrink, hundreds of thousands of plant and animal species around the world are at risk of vanishing,” The Post asserted. “For the first time, the United States is designating a special diplomat to advocate for global biodiversity amid what policymakers here and overseas increasingly recognize as an extinction crisis.”
Medina does have experience in this area, yet one minor detail was kept out of The Post’s original reporting. The paper whose tagline is “Democracy Dies In Darkness” at first kept the fact that Medina is Klain’s wife in the dark.
The favored paper of The Swamp neglected to report that the Biden administration tapped his right-hand man’s significant other so that she can gallivant around the world talking about the dwindling population of the Yangtze Finless Porpoise and the endangered Texas poppy mallow, or something. After apparent Twitter criticism, the outlet updated its story.
The State Department, the agency overseeing this office, provided more details about why this role was needed in the first place.
Before getting into the details of it, would you be shocked to learn that promoting equity and inclusion is a key part of her responsibilities? Of course not, but those two planks of the new American Imperialism are used as justification by the Biden administration for the necessity of the “designation.”
“Decades of evidence shows that water security is essential to global efforts to increase equity and economic growth, build inclusive and resilient societies, bolster health and food security, decrease the risk of conflict or instability, and tackle the climate crisis,” the federal agency said in a press release. “Meanwhile, environmental stressors, like the climate crisis, nature crime – including illegal logging, mining, land conversion, and wildlife trafficking – have deep and detrimental impacts on the biodiversity of our planet and the availability of clean and safe water for human use.”
“The two crises are inextricably linked, and the State Department and Special Envoy Medina are committed to addressing the crises holistically,” the agency added.
She will also be working closely with the United Nations. It is unclear if Medina will hold one of the worst offenders for all those problems — the Chinese Communist Party — accountable for such actions.
If the new gig is anything like Special Envoy For Climate John Kerry’s office, there will likely be much opacity in the months ahead as to what exactly Medina is doing.
Readers will remember that Kerry’s office was asked to hand over certain communications by the Boston Herald, only to be told the requested materials wouldn’t be available until next year at the earliest. Of the communications released to the media so far, Americans have learned that Kerry’s office is keeping certain bits of information out of emails, presumably so that it cannot be handed over under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Maybe the State Department really had an extensive recruiting process. Or maybe, and more likely, Biden is repaying Klain for so many years of fealty and servitude.
This column has been updated to reflect the State Department’s response.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.