Joe Biden, who plays a moderate Democrat on television, has quite a crew of extremists in his cavalcade of appointees in a presumed Biden administration. Now they're trying to scrub their Internet pasts.

Wonder why.

The first example (that we know of) came from Office of Management and Budget nominee, Neera Tanden, a person we got a good look at when the Democratic National Committee's email server was hacked and we learned all about what she thought of things.

According to National Review's Jim Geraghty:

Just what was the Biden team thinking, nominating Neera Tanden, chief executive of the Center for American Progress, to be the director of the Office of Management and Budget? Earlier today, I mentioned stories about her blurting out the name of an anonymous sexual-harassment victim in an all-staff meeting, physically pushing someone for asking her about the Iraq War, and for declaring, “I would do whatever Hillary needs always. I owe her a lot. And I’m a loyal soldier” and, “I don’t really think the issues matter” in emails revealed by WikiLeaks.

I hadn’t mentioned various other factors that may irk Democrats, such as her organization’s center accepting nearly $2.5 million from the United Arab Emirates to fund its National Security and International Policy initiative, or her hosting of an interview of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or her Twitter fights, or her former employees who say she’s a bad leader. I hadn’t mentioned various factors that may irk Republicans, such as her theorizing that Russian hackers changed votes for Hillary Clinton to votes for Trump. And Republican senators are likely to remember every last attack she’s ever made against them.

Wherever you stand on the political spectrum, you can find a reason to dislike Tanden. I suppose in that sense, she is a uniter, not a divider.

Tanden gets into a lot of Twitter fights, no doubt from her acid tongue, with many snipes directed at Republicans who will have to confirm her in the Senate. She's now scrubbing and scrubbing, erasing at least 1,000 tweets, trying to make sure no one sees them.

According to CNN, they contained things like this:

In the days after the election, Tanden quietly began to delete more than 1,000 tweets from her personal account, some of which were reviewed by CNN's KFile.

In one deleted tweet from December 2017, Tanden said, "The Republican party is gleefully supporting an alleged child molester. And everyone who gives money to the RNC is doing the same," referring to the GOP's support of Senate candidate Roy Moore in the Alabama special election. Several women accused Moore of molesting and sexually assaulting them when they were teenagers while Moore was in his 30s, accusations he repeatedly denied.

 

In another deleted tweet from August 2018, she wrote, "Trump just called a black woman a dog and about 80% of the GOP don't think he's racist," adding that the "whole party needs to be defeated."

She also deleted harsh attacks at Republican senators who will likely become crucial votes for Tanden to secure her nomination, including Maine Sen. Susan Collins, and deleted tweets supporting Democratic opponents.

This is the real 'her' and she would rather most Americans not see. Sen. Tom Cotton said that the attacks on GOP senators were small potatoes, and what really bothered Senate members was her pure unadultered leftwing extremism.

But there's plenty more and it goes well beyond snarky tweets.

According to the Washington Free Beacon:

The Washington, D.C., consulting firm cofounded by President-elect Joe Biden’s secretary of state nominee, Antony Blinken, has removed from its website details of its China-related business as the firm’s work has drawn scrutiny following Biden's election victory. 

As recently as late July, WestExec Advisors touted its work helping major American universities court donations in China without jeopardizing Pentagon-funded research grants. An archived version of the WestExec site states that "U.S. research universities" were among the company’s clients and that the consultancy worked with schools to "remain a trusted partner for DoD-sponsored research grants while expanding foreign research collaboration, accepting foreign donations, and welcoming foreign students in key STEM programs." The company deleted references to such work from its website between July 26 and August 2, weeks before Biden accepted his nomination at the Democratic National Convention in late August.

And among the denizens of that company are Tony Blinken, who's been nominated for the State department; Michele Flournoy, the likely defense department nominee, Avril Haines, the proposed intelligence chief; and Jen Psaki, the public relations spokesweasel.

Shouldn't China activities be an important point of scrutiny before confirming Joe Biden's nominees?

There isn't much to be done about China Joe, whose son Hunter's pay-to-play quid-pro-quo China activities are a point of scandal, but certainly Biden's nominees deserve reasonable scrutiny in the Senate and from the American people. Right now. the Biden appoints' Internet scrubbing suggests a bid to cover their tracks.

And China happens to be the number one adversary. Which means that the revolving door of lobbyists taking China's money, doing China's bidding, and suddenly leading U.S. national security is boggling.

There's enough evidence out there of what they have done to eliminate a perceived need to scrub their records, but it's hardly an ethical tack. They owe us news of what they've done that involves original documents and posts. What, again, are they hiding?

Photo illustration by Monica Showalter with use of shareable YouTube screen shots here, here, here, here, here and here.