After news broke that Commerce Department inspector general Peggy Gustafson would look into the unsigned statement from NOAA that backed up President Donald Trump’s baseless claim that Alabama was in the Hurricane Dorian’s path, Senate Democrats quickly followed up with specific demands.
According to a Tuesday letter, those demands include investigating whether White House officials directly pressured NOAA employees, and if any Commerce Department officials retaliated against the scientists.
The latter seems to be an oblique reference to reporting that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross threatened acting NOAA Administrator Neil Jacobs with termination if he and other top officials didn’t support the President’s incorrect meteorology.
The chief acting scientist at NOAA is also investigating the imbroglio to see if the organization violated ethics rules.
Read the Democrats’ letter here:
Is a threat of firing blackmail?
Ross and his minions have claimed that he didn’t threaten to fire people. Instead, he probably said something along the lines of “If this continues, there will have to be a change of personnel to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.” See? No “F” word there. If the guy at the other end of the phone line took that as a threat to his job, then that is not Ross’ fault. Nope. Not his fault.
As if the Commerce Department’s Inspector General will actually investigate anything regarding Sharpiegate. If Mr. Ross, whose ethics have been in doubt since he first took this job, has been able to survive this long the IG will not likely find anything actionable.
Wilbur Ross should be sent back from whence he came, i.e. sleeping.
“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know”