WASHINGTON | A senior White House science adviser tendered his resignation on Monday following accusations of workplace harassment, behavior Joe Biden promised at the start of his term to be tough on.
• Read also: The US Congress is working to avoid (another) paralysis of the federal state
• Read also: Biden buries his plan for two years of free college
“I am devastated to have hurt former and current colleagues by the way I spoke to them,” wrote Eric Lander, director of the office for science and technology policy, in his letter.
“I have sought to push myself and my colleagues to achieve our common goals, sometimes questioning and criticizing”, he writes while acknowledging “to have gone too far”.
Eric Lander notably oversaw Joe Biden’s recently relaunched initiative to reduce the cancer death rate by at least 50% over the next 25 years.
The day after his inauguration, the Democratic president had however warned his teams that he would not tolerate any slippage.
“I’m not joking when I say this: if you work with me and I hear you treat a colleague with disrespect, or be contemptuous, I will fire you on the spot,” he said.
The departure of Eric Lander is not the first within the teams of Joe Biden. A spokesperson had already had to pack his bags after threatening a journalist and making sexist remarks to her during a telephone conversation.