This archive report was first published on 2 July 2020.
On September 1, 2019, President Trump wrote on Twitter that Hurricane Dorian, which was then approaching the East Coast of the United States, would hit Alabama 'harder than anticipated.'
However, the National Weather Service office in Birmingham, Alabama, which is part of NOAA and under the Department of Commerce, posted on Twitter just a few minutes later: 'Alabama will NOT see any impacts from Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama.'
Despite this, the office of Neil Jacobs, the acting administrator of NOAA, issued an unsigned statement five days later calling the Birmingham office's Twitter posting 'inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.'
According to a memo from the Department of Commerce's inspector general, Peggy E. Gustafson, the department is preventing the release of her investigation's findings into whether it coerced the head of a federal agency into supporting President Trump's claim.
The inspector general's investigation looks at events surrounding Hurricane Dorian, which struck the United States in September 2019.
Ms. Gustafson's memo states that staff in her department have 'thwarted' the publication of her report, and that the department has said portions of the report contain information that cannot be made public, but will not say which ones.
Ms. Gustafson compared the move to the department vetoing her investigation, a significant statement given that an inspector general's office is designed to conduct inquiries that are independent from the agency being examined.
Democrats have expressed concern over the department's actions, with Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Democrat of Texas and chairwoman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, saying: 'It is disturbing that the Department of Commerce appears to be obstructing the Office of Inspector General from releasing its report on an incident surrounding political interference into the communication of Hurricane Dorian forecasts.'
