Saturday, March 21, 2026

Grifter Musk, Chup and Kushner

Grifter Alien Musk.  He lost in court.  Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert and Katherine Li (Business International) reports:


A jury on Friday found that Elon Musk's complaints about bots on Twitter ahead of his purchase of the site were intentionally misleading to shareholders.

The jury in Musk's San Francisco securities fraud trial unanimously found him liable for making two misleading statements in the run-up to his 2022 acquisition of the social media site. They rejected two other fraud claims.

The jury calculated how much Musk's complaints about bots on Twitter affected the company's share price before his acquisition, tracking five months of stock activity that showed a steep drop off after his comments. The jury found that Musk's remarks were intended to lower the company's value to secure a better deal in his $44 billion takeover.

The suit, brought by former Twitter shareholders, was filed in October 2022. After a three-week trial, the jury deliberated for about three days before reaching its decision. Lawyers for Musk are expected to appeal the finding.

Monte Mann, business litigation partner and trial lawyer at the law firm Armstrong Teasdale, told Business Insider the verdict reflects how juries are increasingly scrutinizing whether executives' public statements function as dealmaking tools, not just opinions.


AP adds:


The jury awarded shareholders between about $3 and $8 per stock per day as damages, which the plaintiffs’ lawyers said amounts to about $2.1 billion. Musk’s fortune is currently estimated at about $814 billion, much of it tied up in Tesla shares.

“It’s an important victory, not just for investors of Twitter, but for the public markets,” said Joseph Cotchett, an attorney for the plaintiffs. “I think the jury’s verdict sends a strong message that just because you’re a rich and powerful person, you still have to obey the law, and no man is above the law.”

Musk’s lawyers said they had no comment as they walked out of the courtroom.


Musk fit in well with the Chumps -- and why not?  They're a family of grifters as well. Thom Hartmann reveals: 


There are several clear winners from Trump’s attack on Iran:

— Russia, who can again fund its violence against Ukraine with new oil revenue and now claims its unprovoked attack on that nation is consistent with this new Trump Doctrine;

— Saudi Arabia, which has long hated Iran and lobbied since at least 2008 for the US to attack that country;

 — the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has similarly pushed America to attack Iran since at least 2010;

— the American defense weapons industry, which is making additional billions;

— Don Jr. and Eric, who have taken a big position in a drone-manufacturing business, getting them in on the Pentagon gravy train;

— Donald Trump himself, who’s succeeded in largely pushing Epstein off the front page;

— and Benjamin Netanyahu, who’s called for American strikes against Iran since 1992 and will stay out of prison as long as the war continues.

The losers include:

— The credibility of the United States and the rule of international law;

— the families of 13 dead and 140 injured American soldiers and airmen,

— the families of at least 160 dead Iranian little girls and thousands of other dead civilians in a dozen countries,

— American taxpayers who’re paying for the bombs;

 — and future prospects for world peace.

But the biggest winner may be Jared Kushner, who apparently pushed Trump to initiate the war while he’s trying to solicit $5 billion from the same Arab states that have been begging American administrations for decades to attack Iran.

Back on March 5th, I speculated here on Hartmann Report that Kushner and Witkoff had been negotiating with Iran in bad faith, possibly to get the Iranian leadership to meet together in one place so Netanyahu (who used to sleep in Kushner’s bedroom) could kill them all with a missile strike.

Three years earlier, I laid out the backstory of how Kushner allegedly helped MBS take over the Saudi kingdom and was richly rewarded with $2 billion to fund his new investment venture.

Now, The New York Times is reporting that Kushner is back at the Arab trough, trying to pick up an additional $5 billion for his company from the same states that have been begging America to attack Iran for decades.


The corruption the Chump family has exhibited is the worst our nation has ever seen.  This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"


Friday, March 20, 2026.  ICE and Homeland Security continue to destroy lives, Kristi and Corey's relationship embracing corruption gets some media attention, Donald Chump's former friend Jeffrey Epstein continues to be an anchor around Donald's neck, Senator Adam Schiff calls out the administration's use of private e-mail accounts to avoid their correspondence being made public, and much more. 


Candy Castillo Collantes was six months pregnant when she stepped inside the giant tent where she would live for the next 47 days.

Her enclosure at the South Texas detention center held dozens of bunk beds, she said, with one tiny slit for a window. Women wailed late into the night for their husbands and children. When Ms. Collantes experienced vaginal bleeding and asked for medical care at the facility, she and her lawyer said, she was offered only water, prenatal vitamins and a temperature check.

“It’s not a center that we know has a doctor,” Ms. Collantes, a 38-year-old Venezuelan who obtained temporary legal status under the Biden administration, said in an interview from the facility in late February. “The people here can’t tell you that everything is fine.”

Ms. Collantes had heard from other detainees about a woman who had gone into labor at their detention center months earlier.

She was terrified that she could be next.

Pregnant women who have been swept up in President Trump’s immigration crackdown have been held in detention centers as late as eight months into their pregnancies without adequate food or medical care, according to a New York Times examination of 10 cases. The Times review found that, in those cases, the Department of Homeland Security violated longstanding agency guidelines for how to treat pregnant women in detention, subjecting them to conditions that medical experts say can jeopardize the health of mothers and their babies.

Pregnant women said they were served food covered in cockroaches and water that tasted like bleach. They described how Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents shackled their hands and feet, refusing to believe that they were pregnant until a bump appeared. One woman said ICE agents ignored her as she lay on the floor screaming in pain, and took her to the emergency room only after her fellow inmates began banging on the door for help.


This morning, MS NOW posted a report by Rosa Flores about the Dilley detention center in Texas.  






While conducting a war on pregnant women, ICE also makes sure to conduct one on children.  Samantha Michaels (MOTHER JONES) notes:

In November, a 22-year-old woman disembarked from her deportation flight in Honduras, five months pregnant and distraught. Immigration officers in the United States had flown her out of the country without asking her an important question: Did she have any kids? Her 2-year-old daughter was left behind.

“They didn’t ask me anything,” she said in Spanish, according to a new report from the Women’s Refugee Commission and Physicians for Human Rights.

The two nonprofits recently visited Honduras to speak with newly deported parents there. Over five days in November, researchers interviewed 29 people, as well as staffers from a Honduran reception center who had interacted with hundreds of other deportees.

The vast majority of parents said ICE had not asked them if they had kids, contrary to the agency’s own rules. “We’ve been tracking significant levels of family separation, in violation of the policies that the US government has to protect family unity,” says WRC’s Zain Lakhani.

ICE has long had guidelines for detained immigrant parents. Under the Biden administration, the rules required officers to record whether detainees had minor children at home, and to ensure the kids had someone to care for them. This is still true under the Trump administration, even though ICE weakened the guidelines significantly last July. 



The problems with ICE are not on hold.  The problems continue.  Edith Olmsted (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes: 

A 19-year-old Mexican teenager arrested over a minor traffic infraction died in an ICE facility in south Florida this week.

Royer Perez-Jimenez died on Monday of a “presumed suicide” in his cell at Glades County Detention Center in Moore Haven, Florida, according to a statement from ICE. His official cause of death remains under investigation. 

[. . .]
Perez-Jimenez is the thirteenth person to die in ICE custody this year, and the thirty-sixth person to die in detention since Donald Trump launched his sweeping immigration crackdown. He is also the youngest to die in custody since Trump resumed office. 



The Trump administration has reshaped a lesser-known corner of the Justice Department to set immigration policy and escalate mass detentions and deportations.

An administrative court known as the Board of Immigration Appeals has published a body of immigration case law that significantly narrows the due process and relief from deportation available for immigrants, an NPR analysis of its decisions shows.

The White House has done that by shrinking the size of the board by nearly half — and stacking the remaining slate of 15 judges with President Trump's appointees.

Last year, their decisions backed Department of Homeland Security lawyers in 97% of publicly posted cases; that's at least 30 percentage points higher than the average from the last 16 years.

The board has made it harder for immigration courts to offer immigrants bond in lieu of detention. It's made it easier to deport migrants to countries other than their own. And a new proposed regulation would make it harder for people to appeal their immigration decisions at all.

The board did this last year while quickly pumping out 70 published decisions, a record number of precedent-setting cases.



Kristi Noem has been fired by Donald Chump and will no longer be Secretary of Homeland Security. Chump's desired replacement for Noem is the equally upsetting Markwayne Mullin.  But it goes beyond one person.  And it goes all the way up to Donald Chump himself who is responsible for all the people who have died in ICE detention and been harmed in ICE detention, and been targeted by ICE while going about their own daily business.  

Chump has okayed racial profiling, he has been fine with US citizens being targeted.  

Chump has attacked everything that we are supposed to be and supposed to believe in and he has destroyed lives in the process.  

To carry this out, he's had to staff his Cabinet with idiots who are unqualified for their jobs and who lap at his feet while betraying the Constitution and launching savage attacks on democracy.


Kristi Noem has been fired.   During her tenure, she brought Corey Lewandowski along with her to Homeland Security.  THE NEW YORK POST reported that Kristi and Corey were having an affair back on September 15, 2023:

Married Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has engaged in a years-long affair with longtime Donald Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski, multiple sources told The Post Friday.

Though no images of the two getting frisky are known to exist, the pair have been less than discreet about their relationship, with one source recalling them making out at a hotel bar during the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla.

“I remember it was so absurdly blatant and public,” said the person, who recalled Noem and Lewandowski getting “handsy” at the bar of the Hyatt Regency Orlando with between 100 and 200 others around.

“It wasn’t like 2 a.m.,” the source said. “It isn’t like we caught them at some dive bar miles away. It’s a lobby bar where everyone is staying and so there’s a bajillion political operatives and journalists and electeds around. I remember I saw it with my own eyes and a couple other people saw it and the blatantness was absurd.”

The rumors only increased when Kristi was confirmed as Secretary of Homeland -- especially when she moved on to a military base and Corey was seen coming and going all the time -- taking out the trash, you name it.

They never should have been allowed to work together due to this alleged relationship.  The week she was fired, she'd been asked the day before in a House hearing repeatedly about whether or not she was having an affair with Corey and Kristi refused to answer.  









It's become more of an issue since she was fired.  But it is a reflection -- an indictment -- of Donald Chump.

He installed her as Secretary of Homeland Security and didn't object to her bringing her boy toy with her.  He didn't object to their deals that profited them.  The greed in this administration is on full display and possibly Chump's avarice -- on such a grand scale -- distracts from the corruption in those serving under them.

But they all have their own problems, don't they?  Whether it's Kristi and Corey giving their friends contracts or Tom Homan taking a $50,000 bribe -- caught on tape by the FBI.  

Chump allows it.  He waives it through.  

If the Democrats get control in the November mid-terms of even one house of Congress, the ethical and criminal actions of this administration will be put squarely into the spotlight.  It's where Congress should have been focusing for the last year; however, the GOP control of both houses has enabled this administration in its corruption.



More than a year ago, The GEO Group founder George Zoley asked for a meeting with Corey Lewandowski, a close ally of President Donald Trump who had just started a powerful position as a top adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

As a titan of the private prison industry, GEO Group stood to benefit from Trump’s mass deportation agenda, which would require the federal government to spend tens of billions of dollars to transport, detain, monitor and deport undocumented immigrants. The company’s federal contracts in those areas already totaled more than $1 billion per year.
But Zoley and his advisers were worried that the road to securing new government contracts now ran through Lewandowski. The two had history: Lewandowski and Zoley had butted heads during the transition between Trump’s November 2024 election and his January 2025 inauguration, before Lewandowski officially worked for the government, according to two industry sources and one senior DHS official familiar with the matter.

During the transition, Lewandowski told Zoley that he wanted to be paid in exchange for protecting and growing GEO Group’s DHS contracts, according to a senior DHS official and three people familiar with their discussion. Zoley, concerned about the propriety of the ask, told Lewandowski he would have no part of it, the sources said, describing the confrontation as tense.

Lewandowski took a role as an unpaid “special government employee” at DHS once the new administration was sworn in, where he advised and acted as a “de facto chief of staff” to Noem and, sources said, influenced contract awards. Zoley scrambled to find a way to assuage tensions from the meeting during the transition, two industry sources familiar with the matter said. He secured a follow-up with Lewandowski in late February or early March 2025.
That second meeting did not go much better.

Zoley offered to put Lewandowski on retainer — a recurring consulting fee — with GEO Group, according to two industry sources familiar with the matter.

Lewandowski balked, saying he wanted to be compensated based on the company’s new or renewed contracts with DHS, the two sources said.

“He wanted payments — what some people would call a success fee,” said a person with knowledge of the meeting.

Zoley declined, the two sources said. In the months that followed, the length of two of GEO Group’s federal contracts shrank, and currently several of its facilities that could house migrants sit idle, even as Congress and Trump have poured money into DHS to execute the mass deportation campaign. GEO Group officials believe that is tied to their not agreeing to Lewandowski’s solicitations, said a source familiar with the GEO Group officials’ thinking.


One senior White House official said aides were "aware of the allegations of pay to play," and another said at least four companies had raised concerns. No action has been taken against Lewandowski, in part due to his relationship with the president, according to people familiar with internal discussions.

The allegations come as Lewandowski's role inside DHS has drawn scrutiny. Although the department has said he does not approve contracts, internal records recently reviewed by ProPublica show his signature appearing on major spending decisions, and officials have said he often reviewed agreements above $100,000 before they reached Noem.




Two companies with ties to veteran political operatives received at least $23 million in commissions for their role in the controversial Department of Homeland Security ad campaign that helped lead to Secretary Kristi Noem’s ouster.

One of the firms, Safe America Media, received at least $15.2 million and was formed last February just a few days before it was awarded the limited-bid contract to work on the overall $220 million, taxpayer-funded ad campaign, according to an internal DHS memo and three people familiar with the contracts who were granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the contracts. Safe America Media was run by Republican operatives Mike McElwain and Patrick McCarthy, who have ties to a firm that did extensive media buying on President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign.
The second firm, People Who Think, received at least $7.7 million from its 10 percent commission on a portion of the $220 million, according to the memo, which was written by DHS Deputy Under Secretary for Management Paul Stackhouse, and reviewed by POLITICO. People Who Think was co-founded by Jay Connaughton, who did work for Trump’s 2016 campaign and has reportedly worked for other conservative politicians and causes.

The March 3 DHS memo noted there was only a “limited competition” for the awarded contracts because of the “urgent and compelling need” for the ad campaign. It also stated that People Who Think’s 10 percent commission for international advertising and Safe America Media’s 12 percent commission for domestic advertising was below the industry norm of 15 percent.
Besides military recruiting efforts and Covid-19-related campaigns, the DHS ads were the most expensive U.S. government marketing campaign in the last 10 years, Bloomberg reported.
The information about the contracts add new details to the ongoing fallout over DHS’s $220 million ad campaign, which included a video of a cowboy-hat clad Noem riding a horse at Mount Rushmore. It also highlights how political operatives were awarded contracts worth millions of dollars with seemingly little oversight or guardrails — including from President Donald Trump, who White House officials have said did not sign off on the ad campaign.

So the White House knew but, again, with Chump leading the waves of corruption, no one was going to harsh the buzz of the crooks serving underneath the convicted felon.



The Department of Homeland Security has been ordered to preserve all of its records and internal communications as part of a probe into Corey Lewandowski, the de facto chief of staff and alleged lover of Kristi Noem.

Ranking Democrats on three House committees sent a letter Wednesday asking the DHS Inspector General to investigate allegations of corruption, mismanagement, and self-dealing at the department involving Lewandowski.

The former Trump adviser served for more than a year as a special government employee, a role that is supposed to be limited to 130 days per year, but Lewandowski has rarely left Noem’s side since she became secretary.

He amassed a staggering amount of power as her righthand man, including traveling with her to meet with world leaders, participating in high-level policy meetings, advising Noem on personnel decisions, arranging contractor meetings and reviewing contracts, and scheduling the secretary’s meetings with DHS officials and lobbyists.

At the same time, he has continued to pursue his business interests in the private sector and refused to provide financial disclosures.

“Mr. Lewandowski exercised outsized influence over DHS far beyond what an SGE is authorized to do, acting as a shadow chief of staff” for Noem, the ranking Democrats on the committees for Homeland Security, Oversight and Reform, Transportation and Infrastructure wrote in their letter. 

 

The Trump administration is allegedly carrying out a more than $1 billion scam on immigrants, the “largest fraud in the history of the U.S. immigration system,” according to a new analysis.

The Cato Institute study alleges that a combination of Trump administration policies, including freezing visa and status applications for citizens of 92 countries, has resulted in the government collecting more than $1 billion in fees for immigration petitions it never plans to finalize.
“The government took their money, and now it won’t even adjudicate their applications—in many cases, it refuses even to issue denials,” Cato immigration expert David J. Bier writes in the analysis. “The State Department is actually telling consular officers not to notify future applicants that the government has banned them.”

The alleged fraud originates from a group of new restrictions, according to the analysis. They include the Trump administration’s expanded travel ban affecting 40 countries; a freeze and ex post facto review of applications for immigration benefits such as employment authorization and permanent residency; and a recently announced State Department policy pausing visa processing for 75 countries. The Trump administration alleges migrants from these 75 countries draw excessively from the U.S. welfare system.



There are now two defining stories of Trump’s second term, with outcomes the president had not foreseen.

One is the war with Iran that the administration appears to have blundered into without understanding how it was going to get out.

The other is the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, where Trump pledged full transparency on the campaign trail and has spent the past year trying to walk it back.

[. . .]
Trump’s other unresolved matter, that of his one-time pal Jeffrey Epstein, has been received more warmly around the world. Like it or not, the administration’s blunders have re-ignited a scandal that had flickered out until his return to power.

The release of the Epstein files has unleashed new scrutiny of the behavior of once-untouchables like former Prince Andrew and “Prince of Darkness” Lord Peter Mandelson.

The evil of Epstein’s collaborators, like French model agency boss Jean Luc Brunel, has emerged from the files.

Trump’s allies have no problem with America exposing the repellent actions of a wealthy clique that believed itself above the law. They will say “thank you” for that.

Just as long as Trump didn’t go to war with the hope that everyone would forget all about it.


We're not forgetting about it.  Yes, we're turning to news about Donald Chump's buddy, the late Jeffrey Epstein. He promised, if elected, the Epstein files would be released.  In February of last year, Attorney General Pam da Bimbo Bondi invited eager right-wing influencers to meet with her as she handed out binders of 'information' -- turned out that information was all already released -- and declared that sitting on her desk were The Epstein Files and she'd be releasing them shortly. 

Only she didn't.

She did give Chump a heads up in May that he was all in the files.  And then they walked back their promise to release the files and it took an act of Congress -- literally, an act of Congress -- to start the release of files.

Start?

All the files were supposed to have been released by now.  That is the law that Congress passed and that Chump signed.  

But at least thee million pages are said to be still unreleased. 




The top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee is demanding that Kevin Warsh, tapped by President Donald Trump to become the next Federal Reserve chair, explain what if any relationship he had with the late convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.  

In a letter sent to Warsh on Wednesday evening, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts sought clarifications after Warsh’s name appeared in documents related to Epstein released by the government earlier this year. Epstein died in prison in 2019.
Noting Warsh’s name appeared in communications by Epstein employees about a holiday party on the Caribbean island of St. Barthélemy in 2010, Warren wrote: “It is unclear whether and to what extent you interacted with Mr. Epstein in association with the invitation referenced in this email exchange.”

“As the Senate considers your nomination to serve as Chair of the Fed, it is essential that Congress and the public fully understand the extent of any interactions or relationship you had with Jeffrey Epstein,” Warren wrote. She noted the communications that included Warsh’s name appeared at a time when Epstein had already been convicted of sex crimes with a minor, and as he faced civil lawsuits over similar issues.

Warren, the ranking minority member of the Senate Banking Committee that will vet Warsh's nomination, requested Warsh respond by March 31 to eight questions detailing possible interactions between him and Epstein and others associated with him.


Democrats are moving to impeach U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and accusing her of refusing to co-operate in a briefing about the Epstein files on Wednesday.

Congressman for California Robert Garcia likened the closed-door briefing to an “outrageous fake hearing” after Bondi said she would not adhere to a subpoena requiring her to testify under oath.
Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche went to Capitol Hill to try to quell bipartisan frustration over the Justice Department’s handling of millions of files related to the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation after the House Oversight Committee, made up of both Democrats and Republicans, voted to subpoena her earlier this month.

Five Republicans on the committee sided with Democrats to support the subpoena for Bondi to appear for a deposition on April 14.

On Tuesday, Congresswoman Summer L. Lee introduced articles of impeachment against Bondi, outlining several alleged offences, including "defiance of the Oversight Committee’s subpoena to release the full, unredacted Epstein files, defiance of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, abuse of investigatory and prosecutorial authority, defiance of federal court orders, and perjury in congressional testimony," she said in a news release.


The Democrats smell blood. Oversight’s subpoena was bipartisan, approved with a handful of Republicans joining Democrats. And it gives the opposition a firm lever: an April 14 deposition date that serves as a key test of compliance. 

If Bondi dodges, Democrats can try to build toward contempt, and it speaks to some of MAGA’s worst fears about the Epstein files. 

If she shows, Democrats get sworn testimony and a transcript, which is more fodder for their fight against the Trump administration. 

Either way, it’s political downside for the administration, because Epstein is the kind of scandal where nothing new is rarely reassuring. The public assumes there’s always more and it’s being kept, deliberately, from them. 


Yesterday, the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released the following:

Washington, D.C. — Today, Rep. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, released the following statement after Darren Indyke, long-time lawyer for Jeffrey Epstein and co-executor of Epstein’s estate, was deposed by the Oversight Committee. Survivors have shared with the Committee that Darren Indyke and Epstein accountant Richard Kahn may have known about Epstein’s activities and helped facilitate his crimes through their management of his legal and financial affairs.

“Darren Indyke played a central role in facilitating Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of women and girls and managing legal strategies that helped Epstein avoid government scrutiny. In his deposition before the Committee, Indyke would not confirm or deny a settlement with Jane Doe 4, who accused Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein of abuse when she was a minor. However, he confirmed the existence of hard drives held by Epstein’s private investigators. These hard drives are of great interest to our committee. Survivors and victims of Jeffrey Epstein deserve to know the truth. Oversight Democrats will not stop until there’s full transparency about everyone complicit in Epstein’s crimes,” said Ranking Member Robert Garcia.

Oversight Democrats are eager to secure the hard drives held by Epstein’s private investigators. The subpoenas for Richard Kahn and Darren Indyke, close associates of Jeffrey Epstein, were issued after successful motions offered by Oversight Democrats and adopted on a bipartisan basis. Richard Kahn’s subpoena can be found here and Darren Indyke’s subpoena can be found here.

 

###

Yesterday, the House Oversight Committee deposed another person on Epstein.  Anna Betts (GUARDIAN) reports:

Darren Indyke, Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime lawyer, told US House lawmakers on Thursday that he “had no knowledge whatsoever of Jeffrey Epstein’s wrongdoings” during his employment.

The deposition before the House oversight and reform committee on Thursday morning is behind closed doors, but according to a copy of Indyke’s opening statement provided to the Guardian by his attorney, Indyke told lawmakers that that his primary role “was to provide corporate, transactional and general legal services to Mr Epstein and his companies, and I did so”.

Indyke, who began working for Epstein in the 1990s, is testifying under subpoena as the panel continues its investigation into the late disgraced financier.





And on MS NOW, Ari covered a revelation from BBC NEWS about Epstien.




Let's wind down with this from Senator Adam Schiff's office:

In a new oversight letter, Senators point to Trump officials’ use of personal email accounts to blatantly evade transparency laws and conduct sensitive official business related to efforts to unlawfully dismantle federal climate regulations

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW), is leading Senate Democrats in demanding answers on records revealing U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) officials engaged in repeated potential violations of the Federal Records Act, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, and the Freedom of Information Act by using personal email accounts to communicate and collaborate with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on work to support EPA’s rescission of the greenhouse gas endangerment finding.

“These emails illustrate that CWG members were intent from the start on manufacturing a false narrative that sought to inaccurately downplay the harms of climate change. In these emails, members of the working group repeatedly demonstrated their intent to evade transparency laws,” the Senators wrote. 

The letter includes, for example, one of these exchanges: “CWG member Steven Koonin wrote from his Gmail account: “We should be mindful that our email communications that go to DOE addresses are subject to FOIA.” Mr. Koonin even asked fellow CWG member Roy Spencer: “Roy- is there are [sic] gmail address we can use for you, rather than the [University of Alabama Huntsman] address (which may itself be subject to FOIA)?” 

“These emails from personal accounts also indicate coordination with EPA and clearly show that EPA requested the production of the report, purportedly to justify the agency’s rescission of the endangerment finding and associated termination of vehicle emissions rules,” the Senators continued.  

The coordinator of the CWG, Travis Fisher, wrote, “the EPA team asked that the document be DOE-branded,” and “I’ve been told this summary of the science will be published as a technical support document relevant to a new proposed rule on tailpipe emissions standards for motor vehicles.”  

The Senators are also asking whether Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also engaged in similar practices regarding the use of personal emails, and coordination between DOE, EPA, and the White House. 

In addition to Schiff, the letter was signed by Ranking Member of EPW Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). and Senators Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). 

The full text of the letter can be found here and below. 

Dear Secretary Wright and Administrator Zeldin: 

We write to request answers from your agencies concerning the blatant use of personal email accounts by administration officials to evade public scrutiny laws and conduct sensitive official business related to your agencies’ efforts to unlawfully dismantle federal climate regulations. Records uncovered through litigation reveal that U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) appointees engaged in repeated potential violations of the Federal Records Act, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, and the Freedom of Information Act through the routine use of private email accounts to collaborate on the drafting of an error-riddled climate report requested by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to help justify the rescission of the greenhouse gas endangerment finding. These records call into question to what extent DOE and EPA officials may have improperly used personal email accounts and resisted public records requests throughout your agencies’ work to produce the February 12, 2026, rescission of the greenhouse gas endangerment finding. 

During litigation over the legality of DOE’s “Climate Working Group” (CWG)—a group of fossil fuel industry loyalists that was established to provide cover for EPA’s rescission of the endangerment finding—the court ordered DOE to turn over records related to the working group. These records revealed an extensive paper trail of working group members using their personal email accounts to develop the scientifically unsound report entitled, A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate. These emails illustrate that CWG members were intent from the start on manufacturing a false narrative that sought to inaccurately downplay the harms of climate change. 

In these emails, members of the working group repeatedly demonstrated their intent to evade transparency laws. For example, CWG member Steven Koonin wrote from his Gmail account: “We should be mindful that our email communications that go to DOE addresses are subject to FOIA.” Mr. Koonin even asked fellow CWG member Roy Spencer: “Roy- is there are [sic] gmail address we can use for you, rather than the [University of Alabama Huntsman] address (which may itself be subject to FOIA)?” 

These emails from personal accounts also indicate coordination with EPA and clearly show that EPA requested the production of the report, purportedly to justify the agency’s rescission of the endangerment finding and associated termination of vehicle emissions rules. The coordinator of the CWG, Travis Fisher, wrote, “the EPA team asked that the document be DOE-branded,” and “I’ve been told this summary of the science will be published as a technical support document relevant to a new proposed rule on tailpipe emissions standards for motor vehicles.” 

Further, a judge appointed by President Ronald Reagan held that the CWG violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act by working in secret to develop the report. It is clear that the administration recognizes that the DOE report is fundamentally tainted, as evidenced by EPA’s insistence in the final rescission of the endangerment finding that the agency “is not relying on” the report “for any aspect of this final action,” despite having cited the CWG group’s work numerous times in the proposed rule. 

However, what is not clear and what deserves public scrutiny is to what extent DOE and EPA officials routinely use their personal email accounts to conduct official business and whether this practice was employed by EPA officials—as it was by DOE officials and CWG members— during work on the climate report or throughout the preparation of EPA’s rescission of the endangerment finding. 

DOE’s failure to comply with the Freedom of Information Act also deserves public scrutiny. Several organizations have expressed that DOE has failed to produce any records in response to numerous Freedom of Information Act requests submitted to the Department throughout 2025. The fulfillment of public records requests under the Freedom of Information Act is not optional; it is required under the law. 

Given the numerous apparent legal violations associated with DOE’s climate work and EPA’s rescission of the endangerment finding, we request responses to the following by March 31, 2026: 

  1. Did any current or former EPA employees use personal email accounts to conduct business related to the February 12 rescission of the endangerment finding? If so, please provide all instances of such communications. If you do not currently know the answer to this question, please explain how you will evaluate whether this has occurred and what accountability measures you will employ to prevent any future issues. 
  2. Did any current or former EPA employees use personal email accounts to coordinate with the DOE CWG? How did EPA personnel communicate the agency’s requests (referenced in the DOE CWG released email records) to the CWG?  
  3. Did employees at DOE or EPA communicate with the White House or other agencies through personal emails, Signal chats, or other private messaging platforms regarding the development of either the July 23, 2025, DOE report or the EPA final agency action to rescind the endangerment finding? If so, please provide all instances of such communications. 
  4. To what extent did DOE coordinate with EPA and the White House on this report? Did any coordination with the White House on the rescission of the endangerment finding occur outside of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) review process or with entities in the White House other than OIRA? 
  5. Mr. Fisher wrote, “I am happy to relay any questions you all have to the relevant folks at DOE or other agencies.” What other agencies besides DOE and EPA were involved in this effort? 
  6. During the preparation of either the CWG report or the endangerment finding rescission, did DOE or EPA employees use personal email accounts to communicate with outside stakeholders, such as oil and gas companies, trade associations, think tanks, nonprofits, or other groups? Did DOE or EPA employees hold any official or unofficial meetings with such stakeholders during the preparation of the CWG report or the endangerment finding rescission? 
  7. What steps are you taking to ensure the preservation of relevant records sent via official or unofficial channels pursuant to the Federal Records Act? 
  8. Will you commit to complying with all requests by the National Archives to preserve records or investigate breaches of the Federal Records Act at your agencies? 
  9. Will DOE commit to providing records in response to outstanding Freedom of Information Act requests submitted to the Department during the year 2025? 
  10. Given the CWG’s numerous violations of federal transparency laws, will you commit that both DOE and EPA will no longer work with Travis Fisher, John Christy, Judith Curry, Steven Koonin, Ross McKitrick, and Roy Spencer? 
  11. What actions is DOE taking to ensure accountability for Seth Cohen and Joshua Loucks, two current DOE appointees who used their personal email accounts to communicate with the CWG? 

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