Wilbur Ross faces calls to resign after report he threatened firings over 'Sharpiegate'
Source: The Guardian
Commerce secretary reportedly made threats at Noaa after agency contradicted Trump’s false claim on Hurricane Dorian
Last modified on Mon 9 Sep 2019 20.43 EDT
The US secretary of commerce, Wilbur Ross, is facing calls for his resignation after it was reported that he had threatened to fire senior staff at a federal agency unless they sided publicly with Donald Trump in the rumbling dispute dubbed “Sharpiegate”.
The New York Times, citing three anonymous officials, reported that Ross had called Neil Jacobs, the acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), last Friday and warned that heads would roll unless the agency’s disagreement with the US president over the path of Hurricane Dorian was smoothed over.
'Sharpiegate': meteorologists upset as weather agency defends Trump's Alabama claim
Earlier in the week, the agency’s Birmingham, Alabama, office incurred Trump’s wrath by publicly repudiating the president’s false claim that Alabama was at risk from a devastating hurricane. By that point Alabama in fact lay outside the storm’s likely trajectory.
In a desperate effort to bolster Trump’s inaccurate statement, a map of the hurricane’s “cone of uncertainty” was presented in the Oval Office that had been altered by Sharpie pen to extend the area of danger over a corner of Alabama.
Hours after Ross’s intervention, the Noaa put out an extraordinary official statement that sided with Trump and admonished its own Birmingham office.
The news that a cabinet member in the Trump administration had threatened to fire politically-appointed staff at the agency in order to force the Noaa to contradict the advice of its own scientists prompted immediate condemnation.............................
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/09/wilbur-ross-sharpiegate-alabama-resignation
Please call or write your Congresscrittes--#RESIGN Wilbur Ross
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Democratic representatives Don Beyer from Virginia and Paul Tonko from New York have called on the commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, to step down. Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
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