Sharpiegate Report Shows White House Ordered Changes to Public Record on Hurricane Dorian to Appease Trump
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A critical report by Commerce Department inspector General Peggy Gustafson, first published by the Washington Post, reveals that then-White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney ordered changes to the public record on Hurricane Dorian in order to appease President Donald Trump.
In September 2019, the president falsely claimed in a tweet that Hurricane Dorian would impact Alabama, writing that the state would “most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated.”
The National Weather Service (NWS) in Birmingham took to Twitter to assuage concerns from residents, promising, “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east.”
In a scandal later known as “Sharpiegate,” the president then displayed a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) map that appeared to be altered with a Sharpie to show that the Hurricane would hit Alabama. The map on the NOAA website was almost exactly the same, but it did not include the added black line.
NOAA later released an unsigned statement backing the president and faulting Birmingham’s NWS after they were reportedly warned by the White House not to contradict Trump regarding Hurricane Dorian.
Gustafson’s report now shows that Mulvaney told Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to change the public record on the hurricane in order to match the president’s claims, pressuring him to claim the NWS contradicted him on purpose.
“As it currently stands, it appears as if the NWS intentionally contradicted the president. And we need to know why,” Mulvaney wrote. “He wants either a correction or an explanation or both.”
Gustafson’s report criticizes NOAA’s reputation following the incident and notes that their actions “undercut the NWS’s forecasts and potentially undercut public trust in NOAA’s and the NWS’s science and the apolitical nature of that science.”
“The (Commerce) Department displayed poor judgment in exercising its authority over NOAA,” the report added, and “failed to understand the public safety intent underlying the Birmingham NWS tweet.”
