Climate seminars for judges face funding trail probe amid fears of outside influence on courts
FIRST ON FOX: A government watchdog group is pursuing a new possible paper trail to find out who is funding climate presentations for judges, filing public records requests for financial...
By Fox News · Fox News
FIRST ON FOX: A government watchdog group is pursuing a new possible paper trail to find out who is funding climate presentations for judges, filing public records requests for financial information that could reveal how outside advocacy groups influenced the presentations. Government Accountability & Oversight (GAO), a nonprofit, made recent Freedom of Information Act requests, reviewed by Fox News Digital, for emails and financial records held by the Treasury Department that GAO says could show whether funds connected to the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) moved through the Federal Judicial Center Foundation. The effort comes as Republican lawmakers and legal critics scrutinize whether the seminars exposed judges to one-sided climate presentations from figures they say are connected to the broader plaintiffs-side climate litigation network, raising concerns about whether the programs created an appearance of partiality for judges who could later hear related lawsuits. CLIMATE JUSTICE GROUP HAS DEEP TIES TO JUDGES, EXPERTS INVOLVED IN LITIGATION AMID CLAIMS OF IMPARTIALITY The FOIA requests were significant, GAO legal counsel Chris Horner told Fox News Digital, because they opened up a new path for his group and congressional investigators to pursue as they probe what role the Federal Judicial Center, which is a research arm of the taxpayer-funded judicial branch, had in hosting the seminars. While it is not necessarily subject to FOIA requests, Horner said that records belonging to the Federal Judicial Center Foundation, created by Congress as a 501c1, are public. That means the foundation, which is authorized to take donor money to support events, should have a public paper trail, Horner said. Fox News Digital reviewed ELI's tax records, including 990 forms beginning in 2019, which showed multimillion-dollar lump sums designated, in part, for educating judges. Horner said his group was looking to understand the "mechanics" behind that funding. "Judges are…