Judicial Watch secures documents proving Obama’s EPA illegally used social media for propaganda
Neil W. McCabe
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The leading conservative government watchdog in Washington announced Monday that it received 900 pages of records from the Environmental Protection Agency that demonstrate under President Barack Obama, the agency used the Thunderclap social media platform to engage in illegal political propaganda.
“The Obama EPA knowingly did an end run around federal law to push another Obama environmental power grab,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said.
“These documents show how these Obama-era bureaucrats seem to be more like social activists than public employees,” he said.
Fitton said he expects more from President Donald J. Trump, especially when it comes to clearing out Obama holdovers. “Let’s hope President Trump does some major housecleaning at the EPA.”
The records delivered to Judicial Watch detail how EPA employees used the Thunderclap platform to mobilize outside groups and other supporters to lobby Congress in favor of the EPA’s “Waters of the United States” regulatory regime that was opposed by Capitol Hill conservatives and the 2016 Republican platform.
Thunderclap is service that coordinates public relations campaigns across social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook.
It is against federal law for agencies of the executive branch cannot lobby Congress or to engage the public politically to lobby Congress, especially when the federal agency does not disclose its funding or sponsoring these activities, which constitutes propaganda.
Travis Loop, the EPA’s director of communications for water, initiated the lobbying effort in an email Sept. 9, 2014, to Gary Belan, senior director for the organization American Rivers, under the subject line “RE: IMPORTANT: Join a Thunderclap for Clean Water” that read:
EPA is planning to use a new social media application called Thunderclap to provide a way for people to show their support for clean water and the agency’s proposal to protect it. Here’s how it works: you agree to let Thunderclap post a one-time message on your social networks (Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr) on Monday, September 29 at 2:00 pm EDT. If 500 or more people sign up to participate, the message will be posted on everyone’s walls and feeds at the same time. But if fewer than 500 sign up, nothing happens. So, it is important to both sign up and encourage others to do so.
Judicial Watch cites these other examples:
The EPA’s Director of Web Communications Jessica Orquina, in a September 10, 2014, email, wrote to Karen Wirth, an EPA team leader in the Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water, urging the covert use of the Thunderclap technology. “I don’t want it to look like EPA used our own social media accounts to reach our support goal,” Orquina wrote to Wirth.
In a September 10, 2014, email from Loop to Orquina, Loop asks “What’s the best way to get the other agencies to sign up for the Thunderclap and promote on social media? Interior, USGS, NOAA, etc. I was going to tweet at them to join the Thunderclap, but thought maybe you had thoughts on that and maybe a more direct line.” Orquina responds: “Why don’t I send a message to the interagency social media listserv?”
In a September 15, 2014, email, Loop seeks assistance on the Thunderclap effort from the American Public Health Association (APHA). Loop writes to colleagues Brian Bond and Micah Ragland: “Can you reach out to your contact at the American Public Health Association and see if they can use their Twitter to support our Thunderclap for clean water? Basically we would love if they could sign up for their Twitter account to participate and then tweet to their followers an encouragement to participate? If how to do this is unclear I can talk to someone there. They have more than 440,000 followers so this would be a nice bump.”
In a September 25, 2014, email to Jay Jensen of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), Loop noted of the Thunderclap Clean Water effort: “Right now we have 840 people who have signed up and so the message will be seen by 1.7 million people. I’m trying to make this as big as possible, so anyone that can sign up and encourage others to sign up is appreciated. I know you have lots of connections all across the board that could make this even bigger.”
The documents from the EPA were delivered to Judicial Watch were produced because of a lawsuit filed June 21 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia following the EPA’s failure to reply to a May 3 Freedom of Information Act request.
In the suit, Judicial Watch sought all internal emails or other records concerning project administration, management, or assignment of tasks related to the EPA’s use of Thunderclap.
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