Two top officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) who investigated President Donald Trump’s disinformation about a 2019 hurricane have been placed on administrative leave.
Stephen Volz is an assistant administrator for NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service. Jeff Dillen serves as NOAA deputy general counsel. Both were placed on leave Friday, CNN first reported.
“Mr. Dillen was placed on administrative leave by the department’s senior career attorney pending a review of performance issues over the past several weeks,” NOAA communications director Kim Doster said in a statement to HuffPost. “Separately, Dr. Volz was placed on administrative leave on an unrelated matter.”
Both Dillen and Volz led an investigation into Trump using a Sharpie to draw on a map of a forecast for Hurricane Dorian in 2019. Trump did it to indicate the storm would go over Alabama. It didn’t.
Following Trump’s false claim, the National Weather Service’s Birmingham, Alabama, office tweeted out: “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east.”
