The controversy around Eric Garcetti, US President Joe Biden’s pick for ambassador to India

Biden’s steadfast ally

In May 2021, news outlet Axios first reported that President Joe Biden had named Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti as the United States ambassador to India.

Garcetti, 50, was co-chair of Biden’s election campaign and remains a key political ally of the President. It was expected he would be part of Biden’s cabinet, but the controversy around Rick Jacobs is said to have scuttled his chances of that.

Later, the possible appointment of Garcetti, Mayor of the second-largest city in the United States by population (after New York City), as India’s ambassador was seen in American political circles as reward for one of the President’s steadfast political allies.

On January 9, 2020, Garcetti, who had briefly considered a presidential run himself three years previously, endorsed Biden for the 2020 Democratic nomination. At the end of April last year, Garcetti was named on the vetting committee to select the presumptive Democratic nominee’s running mate.

In November 2020, Garcetti was named a candidate for Secretary of Transportation in the Biden Administration. There were widespread protests in Los Angeles by Black Lives Matter against the nomination, and Garcetti announced, without providing details, that he had turned down a position offered by President-elect Biden.

Garcetti won Mayor re-election in March 2017 for a five-and-a-half-year term. Under local law, he cannot run beyond two terms, and the election for his successor was scheduled for the fall of 2022. Democrat Karen Bass is the current Mayor of Los Angeles.

The controversy

The sexual harassment lawsuit against Jacobs, which marred Garcetti’s prospects for a Cabinet position earlier and the ambassador’s job now, was brought by a longtime bodyguard, Matthew Garza.

While his nomination was approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January last year, in March, US Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican, placed a hold on Garcetti’s nomination, citing allegations that he knew about the sexual misconduct committed by his top advisor Jacobs, and did not take proper action.

Senator Joni Ernst too announced she would place a hold on Garcetti’s nomination while investigations were conducted, as some depositions suggest Garcetti knew of Jacobs’ conduct.

A report by the top Republican on the US Senate Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley, concluded that Garcetti “likely knew or should have known” that Jacobs was allegedly sexually harassing city employees and had also made racist comments. When a hold is placed on a nominee by a senator, it means the nominee cannot be approved quickly by unanimous consent, which delays the confirmation process.

Garcetti has said that he never witnessed Jacobs sexually harass his police bodyguards.

The White House has called Grassley’s report a partisan “hit job”, but some Democrats too had reservations about Garcetti. While he cleared the committee in his initial nomination, he was never brought to the Senate floor for a full vote.

According to a report from Axios last May, Democrats Richard Blumenthal, senior senator from Connecticut; Mark Kelly, junior senator from Arizona; Kirsten Gillibrand, junior senator from New York, and Independent Krysten Sinema, senior senator from Arizona, were not sure affirmative votes and had cited “concerns” about the allegations against Garcetti.

The new twist

US Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican, said last week that he too would place a hold on Garcetti, because the latter has “has ignored credible sexual assault accusations in his prior office”.

“I will not turn a blind eye to these absurd nominations, which will hasten America’s decline,” Rubio said in a statement on Friday. Rubio’s move will be another hurdle for Garcetti’s nomination, which had lapsed last year.

The India angle

Indian diplomats in the US said that Biden’s choice was similar to that of President Barack Obama’s for the Indian ambassador’s job in the first term, when he had appointed Congressman Tim Roemer to the position.

The tradition of making political appointments to the post of ambassador to India has been bipartisan, and signals that the White House calls the shots in ambassadorial appointments in countries where the US has vital stakes. Neither Richard Verma, who was appointed by the Obama administration, nor Kenneth Juster, who was appointed by Donald Trump, were career diplomats.

A diplomat said that a political appointee has access and leverage going beyond the US State Department, which is extremely valuable in working the levers in the US administration.

The Biden administration has signalled that India will play a key role in its foreign policy. However, the lack of a full-time US ambassador in New Delhi for the past two years stands in contrast to these lofty pronouncements.