The wife of Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia may have violated an ethics pledge she made before taking her spot heading a federal economic development board, according to Fox News.

Gayle Manchin aided an Appalachia-focused nonprofit in applying for and receiving $62.8 million in federal grant money, some of which was later dispersed to an organization led by Jack Rossi, Sen. Manchin’s longtime campaign treasurer. Gayle heads a federal board that oversees Appalachia development, and her consulting on the grant process may be a violation of an ethics pledge she made before joining the board, according to Fox News.

Gayle, the co-chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), advised the nonprofit group Coalfield Development on how to apply for federal grant money offered as part of the American Rescue Plan, emails reviewed by Fox suggest. Coalfield Development was one of 21 groups that competed for $100 million in grant money through the American Rescue Plan.

Coalfield Development CEO Brandon Dennison sent Gayle an email on October 19, 2021, that referenced his grant application and a phone call that Dennison and Gayle had apparently shared, describing it as “complementary and supportive of the ARC-initiated effort.” Dennison added that, despite the “highly competitive” application process, he was “looking forward to continued collaboration” with ARC.

Coalfield Development’s application earned the organization $62.8 million in federal grant money, $13 million of which was dispersed to the Charleston Area Alliance, on whose board of directors Rossi sits as chair.

Before Gayle joined ARC as co-chair, she signed an ethics pledge vowing “to avoid any actual or apparent conflict of interest” including “in any particular matter in which I know that I have a financial interest directly and predictably affected by the matter, or in which I know that a person whose interests are imputed to me has a financial interest directly and predictably affected by the particular matter.”

ARC denied any foul play in the rewarding of the grant money or any assertion that Gayle may have acted in violation of the pledge. “Federal Co-Chair Manchin does not have any financial interest in Coalfield Development, nor in the ACT Now Coalition,” a climate investment fund run by Coalfield Development, ARC said in a statement.

ARC said that Gayle “encouraged organizations in Appalachia to apply” for the grant money, but had “no role in approving any EDA Build Back Better applications.”

Coalfield Development accused Fox News of reporting “multiple inaccuracies” regarding Gayle’s involvement in the grant process. A Daily Wire request for further details on the inaccuracies was not answered by press time.

Gayle joined ARC on President Joe Biden’s recommendation in April 2021, roughly three months into Biden’s first term in office. Sen. Manchin is a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He is a moderate Democrat and key swing vote in the closely divided Senate.

The Manchins have courted controversy about their finances before. Sen. Manchin made a fortune selling coal “gob,” typically a mining waste product, to a West Virginia power plant. Manchin, when he was serving as a state senator, helped the plant’s developers through application and regulatory processes, and his coal company has been in business with the plant for about two decades.

Iconic children’s author Judy Blume, known for her sometimes controversial coming-of-age stories, said that she was “100%” behind “Harry Potter” creator J.K. Rowling — and was forced to apologize almost immediately.

Blume issued the apology via Twitter, saying that she absolutely supported the trans community and that her point had been “taken out of context.” What she meant to say, she explained, was that she merely empathized with another writer who was being “harassed online.”

Per my recent interview with Variety: pic.twitter.com/ncLSyYqfql

— Judy Blume (@judyblume) April 16, 2023

Blume went on to share a few lines from a recent interview she had done with Variety — in which she had claimed that allowing children to read whatever they wanted was not a risk and argued that reading about transgender children didn’t make them more likely to say that they were transgender themselves.

The initial backlash stemmed from an interview for The Sunday Times ahead of the release of the film version of one of her most popular novels — “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret” — which follows a young girl through the ups and down of puberty and her first menstrual cycle. And during the interview, she said that one of her main goals as an author was to remind children that it was all right for them to simply be normal kids.

“I tell Blume how strangely thrilling it is to see a movie about children where none of them are in possession of magical powers,” interviewer Hadley Freeman prompted Blume.

“Yes, children are so used to superheroes now, aren’t they?” Blume agreed.

Freeman mentioned “Harry Potter” then, acknowledging that most of the characters in the series have some degree of magical ability and that she loved those stories as well — and Blume said she felt the same way.

“And I love her,” Blume said of Rowling. “I am behind her 100 per cent as I watch from afar.”

Blume, who faced considerable backlash for her own young adult novels in the 1980s — in addition to “Margaret,” “Deenie” addressed the topic of masturbation and “Forever” addressed sex — appeared to be referencing Rowling’s ongoing battle with the transgender community.

Blume went on to say that she had met Rowling some years earlier but that the two had not spoken recently.

“I met her very early on in her Harry Potter career, and she said to me, ‘Oh, my sister and I used to read all your books,’ and she talked about ‘Deenie.’ I think once or twice we sent each other little notes,” Blume added. “But I haven’t been in touch with her during this tough time. Probably I should.”

Rowling has been on the receiving end of a lot of hate — and even death threats — since becoming a vocal advocate for female-only spaces amid a movement to force women to share those spaces with trans-identifying but fully intact biological males.

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