Trump Orders Probe Into Judges’ ‘Biased’ ‘Climate Science’ Manual

President Trump has ordered an investigation into a left-wing federal contractor’s conduct in assembling a “biased” and “fraudulent” manual used to advise judges on so-called “climate science.” The order came following The Federalist’s extensive reporting on the subject.

The announcement came in a Sunday night Truth Social post, in which Trump highlighted how the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) — alongside its sister nonprofits, the National Academies of Engineering (NAE) and Medicine (NAM) — “has historically published analytical Scientific Manuals” for America’s federal judicial system. Collectively known as NASEM, the organization has worked with the Federal Judicial Center (FJC) to produce these manuals, which are designed to guide and inform judges in their assessment of science-related matters in cases that come before the bench.

“Of course, the Academy has been run by Radical Left Dumocrats who, it turns out, published fraudulent, biased, and misleading Manuals on Climate Change. These bogus Manuals were used by Judges to decide massive ‘Climate Change’ Cases, and have created huge losses across our Country,” Trump wrote.

The FJC and NASEM endured heavy criticism earlier this year after it was revealed that footnotes and citations to notable left-wing climate activists and advocates were included in the latest edition of its Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. While backlash to the “Reference Guide on Climate Science” ultimately prompted the FJC to retract the section from the manual, the NASEM still posts the manual’s climate section on its website — a concern recently raised by nearly two-dozen state attorneys general.

Writing in his Truth Social post, Trump said that the manuals “have been totally DISCREDITED,” and that America’s federal judges “deserve Facts and Science, not Political Fraud and False Science on Climate.” He further ordered Federal Suspension and Debarment Officials — who work to prevent contractors who violate existing law/government policy or engage in malfeasance from receiving government grants, contracts, and other transactions — “to review this conduct.” The NAS has received hundreds of millions of dollars in government grants and contracts, according to the Capital Research Center.

“Our Taxpayers should not be funding Climate Fraud, and Judges should never have relied upon it. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” the president wrote.

The launch of the investigation comes weeks after The Federalist published an investigative series on the left-wing activists involved in the FJC and NASEM’s latest science manual.

After first unearthing the leftist backgrounds of the manual’s climate guide authors, The Federalist discovered that the authors of the manual’s forensics guide have made numerous financial contributions to Democrats and Democrat-aligned entities in years prior, with several of them showing an affinity for left-wing ideology (such as support for transgenderism and abortion). The Federalist furthermore documented the left-wing American Association for the Advancement of Science’s influence on the science manual.

The controversy over the now-retracted climate guide has not escaped the attention of federal lawmakers, either. The matter came up last week during a Senate subcommittee hearing that featured testimony from Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Elena Kagan, the latter of whom wrote the foreword for the aforementioned FJC-NASEM science manual.

After noting the problems with the manual, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, asked Kagan whether she was “aware” of the controversy over its climate contents, to which Kagan affirmed that she has “become aware of it.” The Obama appointee said that she “hadn’t read” the contested chapter prior to authoring the foreword, and that she “still” has not read it.

“The entire purpose of this book really is not to take positions on contested and contestable matters; it’s to help judges, assist judges, with respect to scientific issues, but not … with any kind of slant either way,” Kagan said. She then added, “I think that [FJC Director and] Judge [Robin] Rosenberg’s hope is that things will be learned from this experience, and that … the Federal Judicial Center won’t ever find itself in this position again.”

Numerous conservative legal groups have called on the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate Kagan for what they allege is a failure to recuse herself from an upcoming Supreme Court case involving “a challenge to a Colorado state tort judgment against oil and gas companies for their alleged contributions to climate change.” The groups argued that Kagan’s authorship of the FJC-NASEM’s manual foreword represents a conflict of interest in the matter.

“Justice Kagan’s participation in the Suncor case is indefensible given her public endorsement of climate-lawfare plaintiff theories,” the letter to the committee reads.

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He is a co-recipient of the 2025 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics and RealClearHealth. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood