WASHINGTON – The Commerce Department is preventing publication of the results of an investigation into whether it forced the head of a federal agency to endorse President Trump’s erroneous claim that Hurricane Dorian would hit Alabama last year, the inspector general said Wednesday. from the Department.
In a note to Commerce Secretary Wilbur L. Ross Jr., the inspector general, Peggy E. Gustafson, said his department staff had “frustrated” the publication of his report. According to Ms. Gustafson’s memo, the department has said that parts of that report contain information that cannot be made public, but will not say which ones.
The department’s refusal to cooperate with the disclosure of the investigation “appears to be directly related to the content of our report and the accountability findings of the high-level individuals involved,” wrote Ms. Gustafson.
He compared the measure to the department that vetoed his investigation, an important statement since the inspector general’s office is designed to conduct consultations that are independent of the agency being examined.
The inspector general’s investigation looks at the events surrounding Hurricane Dorian, which hit the United States in September. On September 1, Trump wrote on Twitter that Dorian, who was approaching the east coast of the United States, would hit Alabama “harder than anticipated.”
A few minutes later, the National Weather Service’s office in Birmingham, Ala., Which is part of NOAA and under the Department of Commerce, posted on Twitter: “Alabama will NOT see any impact from Dorian. Again, you will not feel impacts from the hurricane Dorian all over Alabama. “
Alabama was not hit by the hurricane.
Five days later, the office of Neil Jacobs, NOAA’s acting administrator, issued an unsigned statement calling the Birmingham office’s Twitter post “inconsistent with the odds of the best forecasting products available at the time.” That unsigned statement turned out to be the result of pressure from the White House on Secretary Ross, who oversees NOAA, and which threatened to fire NOAA political staff unless the Trump contradiction was addressed.
In a report last month, NOAA concluded that Dr. Jacobs’ statement violated the agency’s code of conduct. But that report did not address the actions of Secretary Ross or other Commerce Department officials. The inspector general’s report would have been a more detailed official description of what led to the NOAA leadership’s statement.
The only information that has been released regarding the findings of Ms. Gustafson’s investigation is a short document posted on the inspector general’s website, which says the department “led a flawed process” and “required NOAA to issue a statement that does not promote NOAA or NWS interests, “a reference to the National Weather Service.
A Commerce Department spokeswoman Wednesday night said the department was still preparing its formal response.
The inspector general’s note was received with concern by Democrats.
“It is disturbing that the Commerce Department appears to be obstructing the Office of the Inspector General from publishing its report on an incident related to political interference in communicating Hurricane Dorian forecasts,” said Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Democrat from Texas. and president of the Commission of the Chamber of Science, Space and Technology.
Kathleen Clark, a law professor at the University of Washington in St. Louis, who wrote about the surveillance system, said she did not know that other departments had blocked an inspector general’s report in this way.
Richard L. Revesz, professor of law and director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law, said the events described in the note amounted to “unknown waters” and reflected a broader pattern of the Trump administration’s actions toward inspectors general in other agencies.
“Inspectors general are part of a system to ensure that agencies operate within the law,” said Revesz. “Every citizen should be concerned about that.”
In May, the administration fired the inspector general at the State Department, locked him out of his office and his email, and replaced him with an associate of Vice President Mike Pence. Trump also fired the inspector general from the office of the director of national intelligence and demoted the acting Defense Department inspector general.
“I think the inspectors general have treated us unfairly,” the president said in May.
