My question in this post is Did Donald Trump fabricate and falsify United States government data?
If an employee of the National Weather Service did what Trump did in this video, they would be investigated by The Office of Research Integrity (ORI). The ORI would determine if research misconduct occurred
According to ORI, fabrication is making up data or results and reporting them. Falsification is manipulating or changing data that makes the research not accurate. Honest errors are not considered research misconduct.
Which of the following would describe what Trump did when he presented a NOAA Hurricane map showing the cone of the hurricane?:
- He used a black pen and added a line showing the cone extending into Alabama and Mississippi thereby fabricating the data.
- He falsified the original data produced by NOAA altering the map.
- He made an honest mistake, and should have scribbled over the line, or covered it with white-out.
Trump did not make an honest mistake, and to make matters worse he went into the Oval Office and shamed the scientific community, especially meteorology and climate scientists by trying to convince the public that he was correct.
He was lying.
And he should be investigated. But of course he won’t. In fact, nearly everytime he had air time on TV or when answering questions, he made a point to say that he was correct. Instead of being investigated, he bullies the scientific community to accept his lies and false information.
While hurricane Dorian was destroying the Bahamas, Trump was playing golf and tweeting, and uninvolved with the Category 5 storm, the worst to be heading toward the U.S. this year.
On September 1, Trump met with FEMA at its National Response Agency Coordinating Center in Washington wearing his hat, and sitting at the head of the table, arms folded around himself. There were about a dozen people in the room, and they all listened to the National Hurricane Center’s director give a detailed report and analysis based on current meteorological data about hurricane Dorian.
Trump seemed in pain having to listen to a scientist explain the predicted path of Dorian. While there, in that room, Trump made a few comments, including Alabama “would most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated.”
The Birmingham office of the National Weather Service immediately tweeted that Alabama would not see any impacts from Hurricane Dorian. Why did the Birmingham office release this statement? It was simply to reassure citizens in Alabama that they did not have to prepare for a hurricane, when in fact the President of the United States announced they would.
The Birmingham tweet marks the integrity of this office which believes that its work is directly related to protecting life and property in the region. They were not going to let the President’s fabrication rest as the truth about hurricane Dorian. .
But now we know that the decision made by the Birmingham office caused an uproar up the chain of command. At the top of the chain, is Wilbur Ross, Commerce Secretary. Although he was out of town, he was on the phone to Acting NOAA administrator Neil Jacobs and threatened him that people would be fired if they didn’t condem the Birmingham office, and make sure Trump’s statement was backed by NOAA.
Even though Jacobs resisted at first, the unsigned statement was released. But Acting Chief Scientist Craig McLean will pursue an investigation to find out if scientific integrity was compromised by political influence and threats.
This entire fiasco was caused by Trump, and he continues to bully the scientific community, and individual scientists.
A top official at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told colleagues in an email Sunday that he is investigating the agency’s decision to back President Trump’s inaccurate map of Hurricane Dorian’s path, The Washington Post reports. The director of the National Weather Service, also broke with leadership on Monday. Director Louis Uccellini got a standing ovation when he told a crowd of meteorologists at a conference in Huntsville, Alabama, that he commends the forecasters who corrected false statements made by President Trump.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s acting chief scientist said in an email to colleagues Sunday that he is investigating whether the agency’s response to President Trump’s Hurricane Dorian tweets constituted a violation of NOAA policies and ethics. Also on Monday, the director of the National Weather Service broke with NOAA leadership over its handling of Trump’s Dorian tweets and statements.
In an email to NOAA staff that was obtained by The Washington Post, NOAA’s Craig McLean, called the agency’s response “political” and a “danger to public health and safety.”