USAID keeping reports secret out of fear of Trump retaliation

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

I’m Lauren Harper, the first Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy at Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), and welcome to “The Classifieds.” Read on to learn more about how the Trump administration is intimidating agency officials into keeping reports secret, why the government’s argument for keeping a climate report hidden is easily disproved, and more of this week’s most important secrecy stories.

USAID watchdog keeps reports secret out of fear of retaliation

The inspector general’s office at the U.S. Agency for International Development is keeping two reports on the agency’s aid freeze secret out of fear of retaliation from the Trump administration. One of the reports details how aid cuts could jeopardize the Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza, while another assesses the global security threats resulting from immediately withdrawing aid, which would include looting, food shortages, and the rapid spread of diseases, The Washington Post reports.

The reports were supposed to be released in mid-February. But concerns about further cuts to the agency have prompted acting Deputy Inspector General Marc Meyer to keep them in draft form, a move that could also make it more difficult for the public to obtain them under the Freedom of Information Act. 

Keeping the reports hidden is the wrong approach. Agencies shouldn’t be bullied into keeping secrets, especially when it’s unlikely to protect them from retaliation anyway. Meyer should release the reports while he has the power to do so — or the public might never see them. 

Government lies to hide climate report

The government argues that one of its first assessments of the national security implications of climate change must remain classified because it contains intelligence sources and methods. This is a laughably dubious claim considering the report was completed using publicly available material. The secrecy is made further unnecessary by the government’s release of more recent climate change assessments, which note that the U.S. will face “massive” impacts from climate change. 

The National Security Archive, a research organization where I used to work, filed a FOIA request in 2022 for the 2008 report, officially titled “National Security Implications of Global Climate Change to 2030.” The government denied the request — but the Archive’s Rachel Santarsiero wasn’t deterred. She reached out to one of the authors of the report, Thomas Fingar, to get his take. He told Santarsiero that “there’s no secret stuff in here … this was just good analysts working with publicly available information and applying good methodological tradecraft.”

The Archive is calling on the Director of National Intelligence’s office to release the report in order to “fill a critical gap in the public’s understanding of how the intelligence community has historically evaluated the risk of climate change.” The Archive is right — the public should be allowed to read the origins of the government’s assessments of climate change and see if it had any recommendations 17 years ago that could have mitigated the current threat.

Presidential libraries shouldn’t be fronts for bribes

Wired reports that business leaders are paying $5 million for one-on-one meetings with President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, while seats at special club events with the president are being sold for $1 million. Invitations to the events specify that the president is not asking for “funds or donations,” and insiders say the money is “all going to the library” — ostensibly the Trump presidential library.

The claim that all the money is going to the library is extremely misleading. It takes advantage of public confusion around the relationships between private presidential foundations and government-run presidential libraries, and appears to exploit the fact that there are few rules or donation requirements for the building of presidential complexes (whether they include libraries or not).

Read more on our website about how claims that money donated for a Trump presidential library might be a scam and what Congress could do to fix it.

What I’m reading

Georgia won’t say who’s now serving on its maternal mortality committee after dismissing all members last year (ProPublica). Georgia stopped releasing the names of its Maternal Mortality Review Committee members after critical reporting on the preventable deaths of two women. But transparency is key for public trust in health policy decisions, and Georgia should reverse course and release the names.

Secret arrests, hidden jail rosters, shrouded records: Immigration court lacks the transparency of other courts, experts say (Cleveland.com). Secrets surrounding the Justice Department’s immigration court proceedings “make it more difficult for the public to track the cases.” Cleveland.com has an excellent explainer on the differences between immigration and criminal arrests, and why the ACLU is suing Immigration and Customs Enforcement over regulations that make “local jails hide who they are holding,” which can violate state open records laws. 

Thanks for reading, and see you next time.

Transparently yours,

Lauren Harper

Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy
Freedom of the Press Foundation