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The U.S. Senate should reject Eric Garcetti’s nomination to be U.S. ambassador to India

Following approval of his nomination last week by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the full U.S. Senate is expected to take up the nomination of former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to serve as U.S. ambassador to India.

To recap: It’s been over 600 days since President Joe Biden nominated Garcetti to serve as ambassador, a political reward for Garcetti’s early support of Biden’s presidential campaign in 2020.

Amid Garcetti’s nomination have been ongoing corruption probes and convictions of multiple Los Angeles City Hall officials, as well as a Senate investigation finding that Garcetti “likely knew or should have known” of alleged sexual misconduct by his right-hand man.

And there have been whispers of Garcetti’s links to Chinese Communist Party-linked front groups and individuals. Sketchy ties to sketchy regimes is nothing new for Garcetti, who as mayor behested a $5 million donation from the human rights-violating nation of Qatar as mayor of Los Angeles.

Despite all of this, the White House as stood by and defended Garcetti.

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There is no particular reason why Garcetti specifically needed to be the U.S. ambassador to India. President Biden could’ve nominated a less problematic person, one who wasn’t so flawed as to have their nomination held up for over 600 days, for example.

“He is unfit to become an ambassador or really to hold public office anywhere in this country or this world,” Naomi Seligman, a former Garcetti staffer, recently told CNN’s Jake Tapper.

She’s not wrong.

As I have previously written, Garcetti was a mediocre mayor with few accomplishments. He botched the city’s response to the horrific homelessness crisis and the supply-chain crisis during the pandemic. He “likely knew or should have known” of what his right-hand man was up to. And he quickly abandoned any pretense of reforming a flawed city government in favor of taking the easy route.

He should not be gifted with an ambassadorship. It would be a disgrace for the U.S. Senate to approve his nomination.

The U.S. can do better and India deserves better.

Sal Rodriguez can be reached at salrodriguez@scng.com

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