There was continued fallout on Monday from President Donald Trump's scandal involving a hurricane forecast map that was doctored with a Sharpie marker.
"The head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration violated the agency’s code of ethics in the fall when he rebuked employees for contradicting President Trump’s inaccurate claim that a hurricane would hit Alabama, NOAA said Monday in a report," The New York Timesreported.
"Neil Jacobs, NOAA’s acting administrator, 'engaged in the misconduct intentionally, knowingly, or in reckless disregard' for the agency’s scientific integrity policy, according to a panel commissioned by the agency to investigate complaints against him," the newspaper explained.
Like many of the scandals during the Trump administration, it began on Twitter.
The National Weather Service office in Birmingham corrected Trump.
"Five days later, Dr. Jacobs’ office issued an unsigned statement calling the Birmingham office’s Twitter posting 'inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.' That unsigned statement turned out to be the result of pressure from the White House on Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees NOAA and who threatened to fire the political staff at NOAA unless the contradiction of Mr. Trump was addressed," The Times reported. "The White House and the Department of Commerce did not respond to requests for comment."