Investing.com -- Federal bureaucrats this week leaked a memo from the Trump transition team to partisan media outlets in Washington D.C., seeking apparently to create controversy and possibly sabotage the President-elect's plans to transform U.S. energy policy.
Civil servants leaking policy memoranda from political appointees with whom they disagree is a time-tested political strategy in the U.S., going back decades. Leaks from the FBI to reporters, for instance, fueled the Watergate scandal during the Nixon Administration in the 1970s. State department civil servants also famously opposed Henry Kissinger when he was Secretary of State through leaks to the media.
The memo contained 65 questions from the transition team to the U.S. Department of Energy, concerning the names of civil servants who helped the Obama administration execute policies related to the Paris climate change talks last year, and who lead clean energy technology funding projects, worth $1 billion, over the last seven years.
Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), of the Senate energy and natural resources committee, issued a scathing letter to the Trump team, in a tone of high dudgeon, accusing them of "appearing" to engage in a "witch hunt" for the names of staff who were expert in energy technology issues. A copy of the letter was obtained by a U.S.-based journalist for Investing.com.
"Any politically motivated inquisition against federal civil servants, who, under the direction of a previous administration, carried out policies that you now oppose, would call into question your committment to the rule of law and a peaceful transition of power," said Sen. Markey, in the letter, dated Dec. 9, 2016, to President-elect Trump, at Trump Tower, on Fifth Avenue in New York City.
The Trump team said it was simply looking for information on who the key civil service players were in order to communicate with them effectively once Trump takes office on Jan. 20, 2017.
Such information regarding the roles of civil servants on certain projects are likely subject under U.S. law to release via freedom of information requests to any citizen.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, NASDAQ Composite, and the S&P 500, have all hit record highs in the weeks since the U.S. presidential election, on market and consumer optimism about new policies, including oil drilling off the coast of the U.S., by the incoming administration.