OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
The younger sister of President Joe Biden is set to kick off a tour of a new memoir she wrote a week before the book is released amid rising questions about other family members cashing in on his political career.
The tour, set to launch Thursday evening in Washington, D.C., “could create a headache for the White House as she continues to cash in on her brother’s political career, conflicting with White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki’s statement last January about the White House’s ethics policy,” Fox News reported.
“It’s the White House’s policy that the President’s name should not be used in connection with any commercial activities to suggest or in any way – in any way they could reasonably be understood to imply his endorsement or support,” Psaki said at the time.
The network adds:
Valerie Biden Owens, a longtime campaign adviser and political confidante to Biden, will be releasing her memoir titled, “Growing Up Biden: A Memoir” next Tuesday. The book includes a childhood photo of her, Joe Biden, their two brothers, and their mother on the book cover. Not only did Owens serve as Biden’s campaign manager for all seven of his successful Senate campaigns, but she also advised Biden during all three presidential campaigns and has played an integral role in his family’s life.
The upcoming book tour and expected media blitz of Owens’ memoir about growing up as a Biden comes a little over a year after the transition team’s lawyers told Vice President-elect Harris’s niece she could no longer produce clothing or write any new books with Harris’s name or likeness, the Los Angeles Times reported in early 2021.
During her brother’s second presidential bid in 2007 and 2008 before becoming then-Sen. Barack Obama’s running mate and eventual vice president, Owens was his national campaign chairperson, Fox News noted. And while it doesn’t seem like the campaign paid her directly, Democratic consulting firm Joe Slade White & Company, where she was listed as an “executive vice president,” brought in more than $2.5 million from Biden’s campaign and the “Citizens for Biden” committee during that timeframe.
Meanwhile, Owens’ daughter, Valerie J. Owens, who goes by the name “Missy,” has also cashed in on her uncle’s presidential bids, making tens of thousands of dollars, according to Federal Election Commission records.
“Missy would go on to score multiple high-level positions during the Obama-Biden administration. She served as the deputy chief of staff in the Energy Department between Feb. 2009 and June 2011, according to her LinkedIn page,” Fox News reported.
“She then served a year as the chief of staff to the deputy Commerce secretary for a year. Owens then worked at Coca-Cola in its government relations department for a decade, including while the company was reportedly lobbying against a bill cracking down on the use of Uyghur forced labor in China. Two months ago, General Motors hired her to a senior position in the company’s regulatory affairs department,” the network reported.
In addition, Casey, Valerie’s other daughter, was also employed by the Obama-Biden administration. She served as a special assistant to the senior coordinator for China at the Treasury Department for more than two years. According to her LinkedIn page, she “managed a range of workstreams essential to the execution of the US-China Strategic & Economic Dialogue – one of the largest bilateral foreign economic policy initiatives of the Obama Administration.”
Later, Casey worked her way up the left-wing corporate ladder at Starbucks; she’s not a vice president.
Other Biden family relatives have also benefitted from their famous relative, the Fox News report continued, including Valerie’s husband, Jack, who has known Joe Biden since their law school days at Syracuse.
