The New York Times first reported that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross called the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) acting administrator Neil Jacobs and threatened to fire political employees of the agency if they did not support Trump's assertion that Hurricane Dorian posed a threat to Alabama.
Now, I'm sure this won't shock you, but the Times now reports that the order to do that came from the White House.
Trump's chief toady Mick Mulvaney reportedly told Ross to intervene.
Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, told Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, to have the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration publicly disavow the forecasters’ position that Alabama was not at risk. NOAA, which is part of the Commerce Department, issued an unsigned statement last Friday in response, saying that the Birmingham, Ala., office was wrong to dispute the president’s warning.
In pressing NOAA’s acting administrator to take action, Mr. Ross warned that top employees at the agency could be fired if the situation was not addressed, The New York Times previously reported. Mr. Ross’s spokesman has denied that he threatened to fire anyone, and a senior administration official on Wednesday said Mr. Mulvaney did not tell the commerce secretary to make such a threat.
While Trump's lackeys compromise the integrity of official weather forecasts just to assuage the feelings of our Big Wet Diaper President, I find a small sliver of comfort knowing that Mulvaney will outlive his usefulness at some point and it will be his own turn to learn that everyone who works with Trump is eventually humiliated.
Trump's whole crew is going to be slinging reverse mortgages and iodine pills when he's out of office while Trump himself builds a resort in Pyongyang.