Watchdog says feds blocking report on Trump-hurricane flap
WASHINGTON >> A government watchdog says the Commerce Department is trying to block the findings of an investigation into the agency’s role in rebuking forecasters who contradicted President Donald Trump’s inaccurate claims about the path of Hurricane Dorian last year.
The accusation comes from Peggy Gustafson, the inspector general for the Commerce Department, who wrote a memo expressing “deep concern” that release of the report was being blocked.
It’s the latest turn in a saga that led the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to chastise government forecasters who contradicted the president after he posted inaccurate information about the hurricane’s path across the southern United States.
Trump later displayed a Sharpie-altered forecast map in the Oval Office to defend his inaccurate tweet.
Gustafson, in a memo to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross released by her office late Wednesday, said the department was using “amorphous and generalized” claims to try to exclude publication of certain material in the report.
“The final publication of our evaluation has been delayed, thwarted, and effectively (stopped) by the Department’s refusal to identify specific areas of privilege,” wrote Gustafson, who was appointed by President Barack Obama.
Commerce Department officials on Thursday wrote in a response obtained by The Associated Press that the department “is not preventing the Office of the Inspector General from releasing the report in whatever form the Office Inspector General deems appropriate.”
Lawyers for Commerce and NOAA said the report in its current form potentially affects future negotiations between the agencies and the inspector general’s office and that it contains privileged information.
Gustafson’s memo said communications with Commerce and NOAA officials were collegial throughout the investigation, but changed after her office submitted the final report for privilege review.
“This tone shift appears to be directly linked to the content of our report and the findings of responsibility of the high-level individuals involved,” Gustafson wrote. “I am concerned that the substance of our report and findings has resulted in this retaliatory posturing.”