Huffington Post Report Filled with Biased and Misleading Claims
Yesterday, Huffington Post published a report filled with inaccuracies and misleading claims about U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler’s career and tenure at EPA.
HuffPost:
FACT CHECK: This accusation from the liberal interest group, Citizens for Responsible and Ethics in Washington (CREW), has no merit as Acting Administrator Wheeler, under the Trump Ethics Pledge and federal government ethics rules, would still be recused from meeting or working with Murray Energy in any capacity. CREW knowingly misinformed the public with their quote. You would think a group with ethics in its name would intimately know ethics rules.
Furthermore, CREW is nothing more than another David Brock project to attack the Trump Administration. In fact, in a 2017 memo presented at a Democracy Alliance meeting to sway ultra wealthy donors, former chairman of CREW David Brock outlined how “we are going to resist the normalization of Donald Trump” and further listed off how a number of his affiliated groups including Media Matters for America, CREW, Shareblue, and American Bridge will lead the charge against the Trump Administration. The image below grouping the groups together was highlighted at the top of the memo:
FACT CHECK: This is FAR from “nonpartisan.”
This is not the first time a mainstream media outlet has attempted to highlight CREW as a “nonpartisan” or “watchdog” group to criticize the Trump EPA in their reporting.
HuffPost:
FACT CHECK: As Acting Administrator Wheeler has previously stated on the record (here and here among others), he did not have a role in crafting the Murray Action Plan. Furthermore, Acting Administrator Wheeler has recused himself from meeting and working with Murray Energy for two years.
FACT CHECK: Acting Administrator Wheeler was only confirmed in his deputy role in April 2018 and did not become acting head of the Agency until July 9, 2018. To claim these actions were only carried out under his direction is demonstrably false, as many reporters who have followed the Trump EPA should know.
HuffPost:
FACT CHECK: This sentence is incredibly misleading to trick the reader into thinking Vice President Mike Pence was present in the meeting.