FACT CHECK: He Was Not An Obama Appointee

Rik Mehta

I love watching a good fight as much as much as the next guy, maybe that’s why I like primaries. Primaries are also a good way to vet candidates. Look at the primary in CD3, it’s a slugfest and the attacks, while sensationalized, are true. There is nothing wrong with sensationalizing an attack – it’s usually the only way to get people to pay attention. We all do it.

What we don’t all do is make stuff up!

For the longest time the internet trolls were making the claim that Republican US Senate candidate Rik Mehta was an Obama appointee, then the trolls changed the narrative to he was an Obama Administration official with the ridiculous claim that “his big promotion was given by Barack Obama.”

The truth is Mehta started in early 2008 as a clerk in the Office of the Ombudsman in the FDA Commissioner’s office under President George W. Bush. The Commissioner at the time was Dr. Andrew Von Eschenback. In August of 2008 Mehta officially started with the FDA Office of Compliance – still under President Bush.

For what it’s worth, on August 1, 2006, then Senator Hillary Clinton announced she would block President George W. Bush’s nomination of then acting Commissioner Eschenback to be the permanent FDA Commissioner. I’m guessing Eschenback was too conservative for her, but she did eventually back off her threat to block the nomination.

It is true that Mehta continued to work at the FDA in 2009 after President Obama was sworn in. At that time Mehta was a GS-13 (government service employee). Was he supposed to quit his job because a Democrat was elected President?

To make the claim that Mehta was an “Obama administration official” is like saying judges appointed by former Governor Chris Christie who are still on the bench are Murphy administration officials. Should all those judges step down because they were appointed by a Republican and there is now a Democrat serving as governor? No, that would be ridiculous.

What about State Troopers who started during the Christie administration? Are they now Murphy administration officials?

So, no Mehta was not an “Obama administration official,” he had a job that he continued doing after a new president was elected.

By now the internet trolls are getting ready to start banging on their keyboards with something along the lines of “what about Mehta’s time at the Washington, DC Department of Health?” It’s a fair question. The fact is Mehta was recruited to the DC Department of Health by Dr. Joxel Garcia. Dr. Garcia is a Republican, don’t take my word for it look here and here.

Mehta gets attacked for having been a Democrat. I can’t argue that point, but if Mehta having been a Democrat is a reason to vote against him then perhaps you should start complaining about Vice President Mike Pence. Pence, according to IndyStar.com:

He volunteered for the Bartholomew County Democratic Party in 1976 and voted for Jimmy Carter in 1980.

It wasn't until college, when he met his future wife, Karen, at an evangelical church that he became a born-again Christian. A history major at Hanover College, Pence said his political views, too, began to shift.

"I started to identify with that kind of common-sense conservatism of Ronald Reagan," Pence told the IndyStar, "and before I knew it, I decided I was a Republican and moved up here in Indianapolis in 1983 to go to law school."

I bet you thought I was going to use the “Ronald Reagan was once a Democrat” argument. Nope, instead I’m using the Vice President Pence was a Democrat who voted against Ronald Reagan argument.

Fact is, Republicans work to flip Democrats all the time and it does happen. Remember Thad Cochran, the US Senator from Mississippi? He was a Democrat before joining the GOP. Elizabeth Dole? She was once a Democrat. How about New Jersey’s own Congressman Chris Smith? Yup! He was once a Democrat even managing the campaign of Steve Foley in the 1976 US Senate Democratic party primary. The list goes on…

I’m not asking you to join me in filling out your mail-in ballot for Mehta – I’m asking you not to believe everything you read on the internet. When it comes to Mehta, he started as an employee at the FDA under Bush and for his next job he was recruited by a former Bush appointee who happens to be a fairly well-known Republican. Those are the facts.

Being the frontrunner puts a target on a candidate’s back. With mail-in ballots arriving in mailboxes expect Mehta take a lot more incoming fire. And, don’t believe everything you read on the internet, do your research.