{"id":1846528,"date":"2023-02-14T11:20:41","date_gmt":"2023-02-14T16:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1846528"},"modified":"2023-02-14T11:25:30","modified_gmt":"2023-02-14T16:25:30","slug":"biden-fires-capitol-architect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-fires-capitol-architect\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden Fires Capitol Architect"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">8<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbiden-fires-capitol-architect%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1846528&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47-->\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/Brett-Blanton-GettyImages-1464501367-1200x800-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\"   style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p>After an inspection that revealed Blanton had been abusing his position, President Joe Biden removed Capitol architect Brett Blanton.<\/p>\n<p>Blanton will be no longer the architect for the Capitol, as announced by the White House.<\/p>\n<p>Biden removed the architect, who serves at the president\u2019s pleasure, after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-speaker-of-the-house-kevin-mccarthy\">Kevin McCarthy is Speaker of The House<\/a> (R-Calif.) said he had lost confidence in Blanton\u2019s ability to perform his job.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Architect of the Capitol, Brett Blanton, no longer has my confidence to continue in his job,\u201d McCarthy wrote <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SpeakerMcCarthy\/status\/1625187743918702603\">A Twitter post dated February 13, 2013.<\/a> \u201cHe should resign or President Biden should remove him immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Blanton was\u00a0\u201cterminated at the President\u2019s direction,\u201d The White House stated Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Concerns over Blanton stem from a Office of the Inspector General report (OIG) that was completed last year. It found Blanton had been convicted of committing crimes.\u00a0\u201cadministrative, ethical, and policy violations.\u201d They included the abuse of his government car and misrepresentation that he was a law enforcer officer.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.oversight.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/oig-reports\/AOC\/2021-0011-INVI-P-Oversight-Post-Final_0.pdf\">PDF<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>The OIG report is at the end of the document.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cJ. Brett Blanton, Architect of the Capitol, Abused His Authority, Misused Government Property and Wasted Taxpayer Money, Among Other Substantiated Violations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPrior to and throughout the OIG investigation, Blanton consistently contradicted his vehicle-use authority,\u201d The report is as follows.<\/p>\n<p>The report relays an ethics tip describing an encounter with Blanton\u2019s vehicle.<\/p>\n<p>The complainant spotted Blanton\u2019s government-issue\u00a0black Ford Explorer. The vehicle was reported to be in good condition at the time. \u201cdriving extremely reckless[ly]\u201d Through a parking garage. The female driver was traveling at an estimated 65 MPH or faster in an area where the speed limit is 30.<\/p>\n<p>The driver at the time was later revealed to be Blanton\u2019s daughter.<\/p>\n<p>According to the report, \u201cthe Architect of the Capitol (person) or their designee has the authority to determine if a compelling operational condition exists that would benefit AOC operations by using a motor vehicle for [home-to-work] use,\u201d Blanton did not identify his daughter as the authorized driver of this vehicle.<\/p>\n<p>Blanton is also listed in the report as having committed other violations with government-issued vehicles.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Bryan Steil (R.Wis.), who is the House Administration Committee Chair, agrees to McCarthy about the necessity of removing Blanton.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[The] Inspector General\u2019s report was highly concerning,\u201d Steil was quoted as follows: <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChadPergram\/status\/1625192505430970380\">Say it\u00a0<\/a>Tweet. \u201c[Blanton\u2019s] refusal to be transparent and truthful has made clear that he can no longer lead the organization and must resign immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It was not only Republicans who are critical of Blanton\u2014Democrats have also blasted the embattled former architect.<\/p>\n<p>Norma Torres, a Democratic-Calif. Representative, testified during a hearing. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MacFarlaneNews\/status\/1624018907160780800\">Blanton told her she was \u201coutraged\u201d<\/a> By his decision to work remotely on January 6, 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Blanton decided to work at home that day. Law enforcement leaders were expecting things to turn sour.<\/p>\n<p>Citizens for Ethics, a left-leaning political oversight organization, also called for Blanton\u2019s removal in a Jan. 18, 2023 letter to the leadership of the 118th Congress (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.citizensforethics.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Letter_-Oversight-Priorities-in-118th-Session.pdf\">PDF<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Blanton was not available for comment immediately.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After an inspection that revealed Blanton had been abusing his position, President Joe Biden removed Capitol architect Brett Blanton. Blanton will be no longer the architect for the Capitol, as announced by the White House. Biden removed the architect, who serves at the president\u2019s pleasure, after Kevin McCarthy is Speaker of The House (R-Calif.) said &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1846531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[12980,3620,4172,5231],"class_list":["post-1846528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report","tag-architect","tag-biden","tag-capitol","tag-fires"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1846528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1846528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1846528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1846531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1846528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1846528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1846528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}