I begrudge no one an opportunity to earn a living based on his skills. With that said ... come on, man.

Should Andrew Bates profit off of his success in lying about Joe Biden's cognitive decline over the last few years? Or should Biden's PR flack get investigated for it? As Axios reports, Bates has launched Wolfpack Strategies, a full-spectrum consultancy that will assist with "reputation management."

Like, say, gaslight people over incapacitation issues at the top of organizations?

Andrew Bates, a veteran communicator for Joe Biden's White House and presidential campaign, is launching Wolfpack Strategies, a strategic communications firm based in Washington.

Why it matters: As White House senior deputy press secretary, Bates was a prominent voice for President Biden. Bates is among the first of Biden's White House crew to hang out a shingle.

Bates says his firm will offer crisis communications, press relations, strategic messaging and reputation management. He plans to help clients simplify complex subjects and avoid and defuse political issues.

On the subject of "reputation management," NYT reporter Ken Vogel has a couple of specific items on Bates' resumé:

Former WH spokesman @AndrewBatesNC -- who insisted that @JoeBiden can "perform around the clock" & "maintains a schedule that tires younger aides” -- launches a PR firm to offer crisis communications, strategic messaging & reputation management. https://t.co/AkCX8sagco

— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) January 23, 2025

"Reputation management" in this context smells a lot more like "cover up." Bates wants to launch his new business on his experience inside the White House, where Biden's cognitive decline had to have been obvious early into his term. Even Sky News Australia took note when the Easter Bunny intervened to stop Joe Biden from answering questions on the White House lawn in April 2022:

Bates may not have directly participated in that intervention, but he certainly participated in the cover-up that ensued until June 27, 2024. As Vogel notes, Bates along with Karine Jean-Pierre fed the mainstream media a string of lies about Biden's stamina and cognition, including the oft-repeated claim that Biden could "perform around the clock." 

That lie got exposed in the presidential debate when Biden was clearly "sundowning" on national TV. The media has since belatedly reported that staffers narrowed Biden's schedule to only his supposed "good" periods of the day. To be fair, Axios' Alex Thompson reported that in April 2023, noting that Biden's handlers kept meetings to what I called "Dr. Pepper hours" at the time, usually between 10 am and 4 pm ET, for engagement with those outside of the White House. For almost two years, no other Protection Racket Media outlet bothered to follow up, even though Biden's public episodes of decline kept growing -- and he planned to run for a second term.

Bates was part of that effort too, helping to spin Biden as sufficiently fit for another four years when he could barely function six hours a day. Remember how Bates and the White House spun those? They accused critics of using "cheap fakes," with Bates pushing that spin hard enough for the mainstream media to ignore the obvious:

Jean-Pierre mistakenly referred to the videos as "deepfakes" at one point. Trump also has mistakenly called them "clean fakes."

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates has repeatedly called out these videos on X, sharing links to news outlets fact-checking the claims. Politico reported June 18 that the Biden campaign "has established a taskforce to mitigate the risks posed by AI and cheap fakes."

That was ten days before the presidential debate on CNN. Has anyone heard a peep about "cheap fakes" from Bates and his team since? Of course not. The claim was intended to cover up Biden's mental decline -- and again, not just to retain office but to run for another four years. And not only did Bates know better, he also participated in this fraud on the American electorate until Biden himself exposed the scam on national television. 

Now Bates wants to take that experience and use it in the private sector .... to do what? Help other people with their cover-ups? Do "reputation management" to escape accountability? I suppose that would attract a certain kind of clientele, perhaps of the Biden Inc ilk. That would pay well too, so perhaps Bates can bank some capital in case Congress ever decides to dig into this conspiracy of silence around a senile president and the plot to Weekend At Bernie's him for another four years.