The Department of Energy misused taxpayer funds last summer when promoting an anti-Obamacare op-ed written by Energy Secretary Rick Perry through its official Twitter account, a government watchdog has found.
According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the agency violated the law when tweeting about Perry’s column criticizing the Affordable Care Act because it did not demonstrate how the department’s funding was directed towards informing the public about health care legislation.
“Energy did not provide any explanation or make any particularized showing that communicating about health care is part of its work or is related to accomplishing its statutory mission,” the GAO wrote in a July 26 letter to Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Exactly one year ago, Pallone wrote to the GAO asking it to investigate a July 25, 2017 tweet by the Department of Energy which said “Time to discard the burdens and costs of Obamacare.”
The tweet — which was later deleted — linked to an opinion column by Perry published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer that promoted Republican legislative efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. At the time, Pallone argued the department had improperly used funds by promoting the op-ed.
The GAO did not focus on the content of Perry’s guest column but rather on whether it violated the department’s appropriation of funding.
Taking to Twitter on Thursday, Pallone wrote that the GAO’s findings demonstrate “yet another example of the Trump Administration’s illegal and unacceptable use of taxpayer funds for political gain.”
This is yet another example of the Trump Administration’s illegal and unacceptable use of taxpayer funds for political gain. https://t.co/Wi2wJEtIqe
— Rep. Frank Pallone (@FrankPallone) July 26, 2018
In a statement, Energy Department spokesperson Shaylyn Hynes said it “disagrees with the conclusion that DOE was in violation of the Purpose Statute.”
This isn’t the first instance of a controversial tweet by the Energy Department. Also last year, it promoted an op-ed published in The Hill by Ross McKitrick, a professor of economics at the University of Guelph and an Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute.
In the article, McKitrick — who is known for promoting climate science denial — writes that “In the fight between Rick Perry and climate scientists, Perry is winning.”
Other members of the Trump administration have also drawn scrutiny for their controversial tweets.
Last month, watchdog groups questioned whether Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke violated the Hatch Act — which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activity — when he tweeted a photo of his socks with President Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again.” An investigation has now been opened by the Office of Special Counsel.
In a similar investigation, the Office of Special Counsel found that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did not violate the Hatch Act when tweeting about current acting EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler’s Senate confirmation as deputy administrator in April.
The EPA controversially tweeted at the time: “The Democrats couldn’t block the confirmation of environmental policy expert and former EPA staffer under both a Republican and a Democrat president.”
This article was updated to include a comment from the Department of Energy.