(Headline USA) White House senior adviser John Podesta will add international climate policy to his job responsibilities, replacing special climate envoy John Kerry as the top U.S. official on international climate issues, the White House said Wednesday.
Podesta will take over Kerryโs responsibilities, though not his title, when he departs, likely this spring, the White House said.
Kerryโs job was created by the Biden administration specifically to fight climate change on the global stage. His appointment did not require confirmation by the Senate, but a law passed in 2022 requires that special envoys reporting to the secretary of State will have to win Senate approval.
In a step a move to circumvent Senate oversight, Podesta was not named as climate envoy but rather a senior adviser to the president for international climate policy.
The founder of the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress, Podesta previously oversaw Hillary Clintonโs failed 2016 presidential campaign.
He was notoriously at the forefront of the so-called Pizzagate scandal after Wikileaks published emails from his hacked account that showed him using coded language similar to that used in pedophile communities on the dark web.
The messages fueled growing suspicions and conspiracy theories that Podesta and many of his powerful Democrat associates may have been operating a Satanic child-sex ring, although the evidence was never substantiated apart from his emails.
In one such, Jim Steyer, the brother of Democrat mega-donor and former presidential candidateย Tom Steyer, wrote Podesta a message that was interpreted as coded language for an orgy involving young black boys:
โHey John,
We know youโre a true master of cuisine and we have appreciated that for years โฆ
But walnut sauce for the pasta? Mary, plz tell us the straight story, was the sauce actually very tasty?โ
In another,ย Susan Sandler, a major Democrat donor whose family foundation is behindย the recent effortsย to discredit Supreme Court Justiceย Clarence Thomas, wrote to Podesta that after a recent meeting he might have left behind a keepsake handkerchief stained with bodily fluids, according to interpretations:
โThe realtor found a handkerchief (I think it has a map that seems pizza-related. Is it yorusย [sic]? โ
Podesta wrote back, โItโs mine, but not worth worrying about.โ
The Pizzagate scandal, which lay largely dormant following President Donald Trumpโs defeat of Clinton in the 2016 race, recently resurfaced following the news that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had appointed Marina Abramoviฤ, a Serbian artist and โspirit cooking witch,โ to help rebuild the war-torn nationโs school system.
One of the leaked emails showed she had invited Podesta to a โspirit cookingโ event at her home.
Welcome to high end #Fashion & #Art.
Marina Abromovic + Tony Podesta “Spirit Cooking”
This is “Not #Satanic“
This lady did a 6 hour art show where she wipped herself and carved that devil sign into her stomach with a razer blade and lady on a cross of ice at a art gallery pic.twitter.com/zSSsLSOUl1
โ FashionFiles(1).JPEG | #Balenciaga (@FashionArtFiles) December 21, 2022
Podesta also likely had a hand in plotting the Russia-collusion hoax used by the Clinton campaign to smear Trump.
And during the 2020 election, his prints were on several election-meddling efforts, which included participation in theย Transition Integrity Project, a group that had gamed out the possibilities for a blue-state secession and civil war in the event that Trump were re-elected.
As climate czar, Podesta will have access to a vast but nebulous budget, long criticized for its lack of accountability given that the jet-setting Kerryโs official job responsibilities were largely unspecified.
Kerry, whose flatulence at the recent COP28 received more attention than his diplomatic efforts,ย announced in mid-January that he would step down from the climate job to work on President Joe Bidenโs reelection campaign.
Podesta, who played a behind-the-scenes role in the Clinton and Obama administrations, was brought back to the White House last year to put into place an ambitious U.S. climate program revived with the $375 billion approved in the 2022 climate law. He also led the administrationโs climate task force.
As outlined Wednesday by the White House, Podesta will continue to be involved in overseeing federal spending under the climate law, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, along with domestic climate priorities, adding the international portfolio that Kerry handled.
White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients said Kerry โhas tirelessly trekked around the worldโ to help confront the climate crisis.
โThere is no one better than John Podesta to make sureโ the U.S. continues to โmeet the gravity of this moment,โ Zients said, calling Podesta โa fierce champion for bold climate actionโ who has served three Democratic presidents and has Bidenโs trust.
The Washington Post first reported Podestaโs appointment.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
