Jeff Zients, the former White House coronavirus response coordinator who is succeeding Ron Klain as President Joe Biden’s new chief of staff, has faced left-wing criticism for his corporate past and the massive wealth he’s accumulated in the private sector.

Progressive Twitter users were quick to recirculate old articles criticizing Zients after the news broke on Twitter Sunday that Zients would be taking over for Klain in the coming weeks. Fox News Digital confirmed Zients would be the incoming chief of staff.

Zients held several positions in the Obama administration, including director of the National Economic Council from March 2014 to January 2017, before he returned to the private sector, sitting on the board of directors at Facebook and holding executive jobs at The Advisory Board Company and CEB. He has also worked closely alongside several of Biden’s senior advisers and members of his cabinet.

Upon joining the current White House as Biden’s COVID-19 czar from early 2021 through April 2022, Zients disclosed owning between $89.3 million and $442.8 million in assets, including various investment funds, real estate properties and cash shares.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) and Public Citizen, two liberal think tanks based in Washington, D.C., have been vocally opposed to Zients’ tenure as COVID czar, slamming him for not going far enough on mask mandates and not acting more quickly to ship vaccines overseas.

‘Jeff Zients failed, and the world paid the price,’ Public Citizen President Robert Weissman said in March 2022.

The CEPR’s Revolving Door Project, which frequently criticizes Zients’ wealth and corporate past, blasted his hiring as chief of staff on Sunday.

‘Americans are appalled by profiteering in healthcare – Jeff Zients has become astonishingly rich by profiteering in healthcare,’ Revolving Door Project Executive Director Jeff Hauser said in a statement Sunday.

‘Joe Biden’s best chance to fight for the American people and defeat the dark forces threatening our economy is to show real results via the branch of government he runs – the executive branch,’ he said. ‘We have long argued for a ‘corporate crackdown‘ on behaviors that violate federal laws and harm the American people in order for corporations to become richer. Those are the practices that have made Zients rich. We’re deeply worried that Zients will prevent the administration from exercising power righteously on behalf of an already cynical populace.’

In January 2022, one year into Zients’ stint coordinating the White House’s coronavirus response, the Revolving Door Project published an article in The American Prospect titled, ‘Fire Jeff Zients,’ which described Zients as a ‘former corporate executive whose track record bolsters the worst possible impulses for a Biden appointee in command of the federal government’s resources.’

Several months later, when rumors first surfaced about Zients succeeding Klain, the project published an article examining Zients’ ‘corporate past,’ which also looked at his investment firm Portfolio Logic LLC, where he was managing partner.

‘Taken together, an examination of the companies that made Zients rich paints a picture of a man who seized on medical providers as a way to capitalize on the suffering of sick Americans. In the end, it seems to have all paid off,’ the report said.

‘As rumors swirl about Zients succeeding Ronald Klain as President Biden’s chief of staff,’ it continued,’ his corporate record raises serious questions about his fitness to serve in an administration that has attempted to market itself as a champion of working people.’

The report cited a 2015 federal lawsuit in which Portfolio Logic, which Zients founded, agreed to pay almost $7 million to resolve allegations of fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid billing by a subsidiary that it acquired years earlier.

Zients did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Fox News’ Brooke Singman, Anders Hagstrom and Greg Wehner contributed reporting.

House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark’s daughter was arrested on Saturday evening for allegedly spray-painting a monument and assaulting a police officer during a protest. 

‘I love Riley, and this is a very difficult time in the cycle of joy and pain in parenting,’ Clark tweeted. ‘This will be evaluated by the legal system, and I am confident in that process.’

Riley Dowell, 23, was arrested and charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, destruction or injury of personal property, and damage of property by graffiti. 

The Boston Police Department referred to the suspect as ‘Jared Dowell.’ Clark has spoken in the past about how one of her children is non-binary.

Officers were called to the Parkman Bandstand Monument in the Boston Common around 9:30 p.m. on Saturday evening about a protest. 

When they arrived, they saw Dowell allegedly spray-painting ‘ACAB,’ which stands for ‘All Cops Are Bastards,’ and ‘NO COP CITY,’ an apparent reference to a police training facility in the suburbs of Atlanta that has sparked protests after officers shot and killed a protester who opened fire on them earlier this week. 

While police arrested Dowell, a group of 20 protesters ‘began to surround officers while screaming profanities though megaphones on the public street causing traffic to come to a standstill,’ according to police. 

The protesters were ‘interfering with the arrest’ and ‘an officer was hit in the face and could be seen bleeding from the nose and mouth.’

Dowell will be arraigned in Boston Municipal Court. 

Clark, 59, is the second highest-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives after being elected whip last month. 

Another protester accused of spray-painting the monument, 27-year-old Andrea Colletti, was arrested about an hour later. 

Protests erupted in Atlanta this week over a new police training facility after officers shot and killed 26-year-old environmental activist Manuel Esteban Paez Teran. 

Teran first shot and wounded a Georgia state trooper before police returned fire, according to authorities. 

On Saturday evening in Atlanta, protesters smashed windows, set a police vehicle on fire, ignited fireworks, and threw rocks at the Atlanta Police Foundation Saturday evening, according FOX 5 Atlanta.

President Biden’s former COVID-19 czar Jeff Zients will soon replace Ron Klain as White House chief of staff, Fox News confirmed on Sunday.

Zients served as Biden’s COVID response coordinator from early 2021 through April 2022. Klain plans to step down as chief of staff in the coming days after serving in the role since Biden’s inauguration.

President Biden has touted Zients’ work since the beginning of his administration when he tapped him to lead the administration’s COVID-19 efforts.

‘There is no one better at delivering results than Jeff,’ Biden said at the time.

Biden credited Zients for putting ‘decades of management experience to work formulating and executing on a plan to build the infrastructure we needed to deliver vaccines, tests, treatment, and masks to hundreds of millions of Americans.’

The President’s former COVID-19 coordinator also led efforts to fix HealthCare.gov after its bungled launch in 2013, and once he takes on the role will continue to build economic growth through the creation of jobs, a manufacturing and small business boom, and lowered costs for American families.

Zients once served as the acting and deputy director of the Office of the Management and Budget under President Obama, and it is anticipated that his strong relationships in the business community will be an asset to the Biden Administration.

Zients was previously a co-chair for the Biden transition team and has worked at Facebook, The Advisory Board Company and CEB.

He has also been in President Biden’s inner circle for many years and has developed relationships with every member of his senior advisor group.

Klain, a longtime Biden confidante and Democratic operative, was the longest-serving chief of staff to a Democratic president. He previously served as Biden’s chief of staff when he was vice president during the Obama administration and is an attorney and former lobbyist.

A graduate of Harvard Law School, Klain began his career working for the then-senator from Delaware. In the late 1980s, when Biden led the Senate Judiciary Committee, Klain served as the committee’s chief counsel. Furthermore, he was an adviser and speechwriter for Biden’s unsuccessful 1988 and 2008 White House campaigns.

The shake-up comes as Biden is facing the biggest scandal of his presidency so far, with stashes of misplaced classified documents continuing to be found at his private residence in Wilmington, Delaware.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate the matter earlier in January, tapping former U.S. Attorney Robert Hur.

The timeline for Klain’s departure and Zients’ arrival as chief of staff remains unclear.

The White House did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Fox News’ Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.

A gunman killed 10 people and injured 10 others at a Southern California ballroom dance studio Saturday amid Lunar New Year celebrations. 

Twenty to 30 minutes later, a man with a gun entered the Lai Lai Ballroom in nearby Alhambra but patrons wrestled the gun away from him and he fled, authorities said. 

Despite police not releasing the suspect’s identity or race, some liberals on Twitter were quick to pin the horror on white supremacy and anti-Asian hate before all the facts were known.  

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., tweeted: ‘We must stand up to bigotry and hate wherever they rear their ugly heads, and we must keep working to stop gun violence.’ 

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Saturday’s shooting was ‘A horrific example of needless gun violence. With bigotry toward AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) individuals as a possible motive.’ 

Meanwhile, #StopAsianHate many Twitter users condemned the violence, punctuating their tweets with ‘#StopAsianHate.’ 

Wisconsin State Representative Francesca Hong, sharing her condolences for the victims, tweeted: ‘We are broken as a nation to have mass shootings and white supremacy reign terror.’ 

Though not all details were known Sunday afternoon, authorities say that the suspected gunman was an Asian man between the ages of 30 and 50.

Authorities said Sunday they know the suspect’s name but declined to release it because it could complicate their ability to apprehend him. They released a photo showing an Asian man wearing glasses and a winter hat. The image was taken from the attempted shooting in Alhambra.

Chester Chong, chairman of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce Los Angeles, told ABC 7 that the mass shooting was over a ‘domestic dispute.’ 

By midday Sunday, police in tactical vehicles and bomb squad trucks surrounded a white van in a parking lot in Torrance, located roughly 30 miles southwest of Monterey Park. A law enforcement source told Fox News that an individual inside the van had shot and killed himself. 

Hours earlier, Los Angeles Sheriff Robert Luna said authorities were looking for a white van after witnesses reported seeing the suspect flee from Alhambra in such a vehicle.

The sheriff declined to say what type of gun was recovered in Alhambra. He said investigators believe the gun used in Monterey Park was not an assault rifle.

The shooting and manhunt sent a wave of fear through Asian American communities in the Los Angeles area and cast a shadow over Lunar New Year festivities around the country. 

Monterey Park is a city of about 60,000 people on the eastern edge of Los Angeles and is composed mostly of Asian immigrants from China or first-generation Asian Americans. The shooting happened in the heart of its downtown where red lanterns decorated the streets for the Lunar New Year festivities. A police car was parked near a large banner that proclaimed ‘Happy Year of the Rabbit!’

The shooting occurred at Star Ballroom Dance Studio, a few blocks from city hall on Monterey Park’s main thoroughfare of Garvey Avenue, which is dotted with strip malls of small businesses whose signs are in both English and Chinese. Cantonese and Mandarin are both widely spoken, Chinese holidays are celebrated, and Chinese films are screened regularly in the city.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said Sunday that President Biden should have ‘a lot of regrets’ over his mishandling of classified documents that has led to a federal investigation and search of his Wilmington, Delaware, home.

Biden raised eyebrows last week after he declared he had ‘no regrets,’ after several batches were discovered at his home and the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C.

Manchin told ‘Meet the Press’ anchor Chuck Todd the controversy could likely be blamed on human error, but that the president should at least admit he was ‘irresponsible.’

‘To put those in unsecure spaces is irresponsible,’ Manchin said. ‘I think he should have a lot of regrets.’

‘I’m going hold someone accountable, but basically the buck stops with me,’ he said. ‘We’re all human and make mistakes. I can tell you, I don’t think anyone intended – he sure didn’t intend for it to fall in the wrong hands and use it against our country. I know he didn’t intend that to happen. Could it have happened? I don’t know. And, yeah, you just might as well say, ‘Listen, it’s responsible. It was something we should have had a better check and balance on.’’

While touring California to observe storm recovery efforts on Thursday, Biden said, ‘We’re fully cooperating and looking forward to getting this resolved quickly.’ 

‘We found a handful of documents were filed in the wrong place,’ Biden said. He added: ‘I think you’re going to find there’s nothing there. I have no regrets. I’m following what the lawyers have told me they want me to do. It’s exactly what we’re doing. There’s no there there.’ 

During a press briefing, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced Biden was retreating to his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, for the weekend. Asked what he meant when he said ‘no regrets,’ Jean-Pierre refused to comment further. 

‘I’m not going to get into specifics, or I’m not going to go beyond what the president has said,’ she told reporters. 

‘I will reiterate from here … basically what he said to all of you, many times at this point, that he does indeed take classified information seriously, he does indeed take classified documents seriously. I’m just not going to go beyond that,’ she added. 

Jean-Pierre refused to comment on additional follow-up questions, letting ‘the president’s words stand for itself.’ 

The White House said Biden attorneys discovered Obama administration-era classified documents and official records on four separate occasions — on Nov. 2 days before the midterm elections at the offices of the Penn Biden Center in Washington, on Dec. 20 in the garage of the president’s Wilmington home, and on Nov. 11 and 12 in the president’s home library. The discoveries only became public this month after CBS News broke the story and the White House was forced to respond.

On Saturday, the FBI searched Biden’s Wilmington home and found additional classified documents dating back to the president’s time as a senator.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Robert Hur, a former Maryland U.S. attorney, to serve as special counsel to oversee an inquiry into the documents. The special counsel investigation into Biden was launched just months after a similar one into former President Donald Trump, who kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida. In that case, the FBI raided Trump’s property after the agency suspected there were more documents than previously believed based on interviews and failed negotiations to hand them over. Trump has claimed he did no wrong in the matter.

The White House has emphasized that Biden’s case is different because his team cooperated with the DOJ and National Archives, while Trump’s team resisted requests to turn over the classified documents. 

Manchin appeared to agree with that assessment Sunday, but said the duel investigations of two presidents is still incredible.

‘I mean, it’s just hard to believe that in the United States of America we have a former president and the current president basically in the same situation. How does this happen?’ he asked.

‘Is one more reckless and irresponsible than the other? I can’t answer that question,’ he said. ‘But I think the special counsel will do a better job than the politicians and the political circus that’s going to follow.’

Fox News’ Bradford Betz and Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.

President Biden’s former COVID-19 czar Jeff Zients will soon replace Ron Klain as White House chief of staff, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

Fox News Digital has not independently confirmed the plans. Zients served as Biden’s COVID response coordinator from early 2021 through April 2022. Klain reportedly plans to step down as chief of staff in the coming days after serving in the role since Biden’s inauguration.

President Biden has touted Zients’ work since the beginning of his administration when he tapped him to lead the administration’s COVID-19 efforts.

‘There is no one better at delivering results than Jeff,’ Biden said at the time.

Biden credited Zients for putting ‘decades of management experience to work formulating and executing on a plan to build the infrastructure we needed to deliver vaccines, tests, treatment, and masks to hundreds of millions of Americans.’

Zients was previously a co-chair for the Biden transition team and has worked at Facebook, The Advisory Board Company and CEB.

Klain, a longtime Biden confidante and Democratic operative, was the longest-serving chief of staff to a Democratic president. He previously served as Biden’s chief of staff when he was vice president during the Obama administration and is an attorney and former lobbyist.

A graduate of Harvard Law School, Klain began his career working for the then-senator from Delaware. In the late 1980s, when Biden led the Senate Judiciary Committee, Klain served as the committee’s chief counsel. Furthermore, he was an adviser and speechwriter for Biden’s unsuccessful 1988 and 2008 White House campaigns.

The shake-up comes as Biden is facing the biggest scandal of his presidency so far, with stashes of misplaced classified documents continuing to be found at his private residence in Wilmington, Delaware.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate the matter earlier in January, tapping former U.S. Attorney Robert Hur.

The timeline for Klain’s departure and Zients’ arrival as chief of staff remains unclear.

The White House did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Fox News’ Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.

Democrats have been noticeably silent on the anti-police violence that unraveled in Atlanta over the weekend after rioters set a police vehicle ablaze and smashed windows in response to the police-involved shooting of an armed activist days earlier.

Protesters had gathered Saturday in response to the death of 26-year-old Manuel Esteban Paez Teran, who was killed by officers on Wednesday after he allegedly refused demands from authorities and shot a state trooper at the site of the new Atlanta Public Safety Training Center.

The protests on Saturday began peacefully before spiraling into chaotic riots, resulting in at least six arrests. 

Photos showed the activists allegedly lit an Atlanta PD vehicle on fire in addition to targeting the Atlanta Police Foundation building with rocks and fireworks.

Caution tape was also wrapped around several buildings, including a Wells Fargo location that suffered several broken windows, photos at the scene showed.

Fox News Digital reached out to multiple Democrats, many of whom had previously been vocal on defunding the police, about whether they condoned the violence and if these types of protests were considered a threat to democracy. However, inquiries sent to the White House, Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and Reps. Nancy Pelosi, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, Summer Lee and Delia Ramirez went unreturned.

Georgia Democrats and Georgia state Rep. Park Cannon also did not return requests for comment.

However, Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., released a statement Saturday evening saying, ‘Peaceful protest is a sacred Constitutional right but violence is unacceptable, cannot be permitted or tolerated, and must cease immediately.’

‘Atlanta Police have arrested 6 people so far, some of whom were carrying explosives,’ Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, a Democrat, tweeted Saturday evening. ‘These individuals meant violence and used the cover of peaceful protest to conceal their motives. Our law enforcement teams were prepared and resolved the situation swiftly.’

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, on Saturday slammed the destruction and said violence of any kind will not be tolerated. 

‘While the state continues to respect peaceful protest, acts of violence against person or property will not be tolerated. Those committing such unlawful acts will be arrested and prosecuted fully,’ Kemp said.

Activists had been camped out for months on an 85-acre planned facility known as ‘Cop City’ to protest the planned training center in Atlanta. Teran was shot and killed after authorities tried to remove the protesters from the plot of land on Wednesday.

A total of seven people were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism when the campsites were cleared Wednesday.

The Twitter account Scenes from the Atlanta Forest had called for a ‘Night of Rage’ to enact ‘reciprocal violence to be done to the police and their allies,’ according to a post.

Fox News’ Emma Colton and Lawrence Richard contributed to this report.

Justice Department prosecutors are reportedly considering requesting a search of President Biden’s home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware after several sets of classified documents were found at his Wilmington, Delaware home in recent weeks.

News of the consideration comes days after FBI officials searched Biden’s Wilmington home at the invitation of the White House. There, officials uncovered a fourth batch of misplaced classified documents, leading DOJ officials to consider searches at other locations connected to Biden, according to CBS News.

The DOJ has not pursued a search warrant for any of Biden’s properties, however. The Friday search in Wilmington was consensual, and prosecutors would plan to request access to Biden’s other properties.

Friday’s batch of documents were the fourth to be found since November, and the third to be found inside Biden’s Wilmington home. They date back to his time in the Senate, while the other three batches date back to his time as vice president.

FBI and other DOJ personnel arrived at Biden’s Wilmington home at 9:45 a.m. Friday and searched the house for roughly 12 hours, leaving at 10:30 p.m. 

U.S. Attorney John Lausch coordinated the effort. He is maintaining a prominent role in the investigation while special counsel Robert Hur gets up to speed.

Officials recovered six items consisting of documents marked classified and took them into custody.

The search came after White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre assured reporters in mid-January that the search for new documents was over. Nevertheless, new documents were found at the Wilmington residence Jan. 14 and again on Jan. 20.

Biden’s lawyers uncovered the first batch of classified documents inside the Penn Biden Center offices in November and said they immediately handed over the documents to the National Archives.

The trove of mishandled documents led Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel to investigate the matter, tapping Hur.

Meanwhile, Republicans on Capitol Hill are ramping up scrutiny into the investigation, with House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer, R-K.y., suggesting there may have been a ‘coverup.’