Report: Information Suppression Is Part of a Trump Administration Effort to Serve Corporate and Extremist Interests
March 13, 2018
Report: Information Suppression Is Part of a Trump Administration Effort to Serve Corporate and Extremist Interests
‘Inconvenient Information’ Shows Administration Has Declined to Collect Information, Deleted Publications, Silenced Scientists and More
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Trump administration distorts the truth on a regular basis by squelching data it doesn’t like, misleading the public with pseudo-statistics, stifling the view of experts and canceling important government studies, according to a Public Citizen report released today.
“A president who cares little about facts and has a dubious understanding of the concept of truthfulness sets the tone for his overall administration,” said Public Citizen President Robert Weissman. “But the Trump administration isn’t just sloppy with the facts. It has engaged in a deliberate campaign to suppress information that contradicts its corporate and ideological extremist agenda.”
The report finds that the Trump administration has declined to collect important information, deleted publications that contradict its policy goals, silenced the views of scientists, removed information from federal websites, politicized the scientific grant-making process, prohibited experts from using common words, kept White House visitor logs secret and actively misled the public in official reports.
The Trump administration-wide information suppression is a considered and concerted effort to serve corporate and extremist ideological interests. The administration has:
- Suppressed studies that contradicted its preferred positions on big business priorities including corporate tax giveaways, a regulatory proposal to enable management to steal tip income from restaurant workers, mining and oil drilling;
- Manipulated the census and other data collection efforts to drive forward an anti-immigrant and racist agenda;
- Aimed to shut down rigorous studies to evaluate how to reduce teen pregnancy; and
- Failed to get input from scientists and other experts.
“Trump administration officials seem eager to dish off the record about the daily drama of a dysfunctional White House,” said Alan Zibel, research director for Public Citizen’s Corporate Presidency Project. “But they routinely suppress far more consequential information about how Trump’s dangerous worker safety, public health and environmental policies will impact Americans.”
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