Trump Orders a Federal Debarment Review of the National Academy of Sciences Over ‘Totally DISCREDITED’ Climate Manuals for Judges — Escalating a Fight House Republicans Had Already Been Waging Over the Academy’s Federal Contracts.
On the evening of July 19, 2026, President Trump (R) used Truth Social to order “Federal Suspension and Debarment Officials” to investigate the National Academy of Sciences, accusing the organization of publishing “fraudulent, biased, and misleading” climate guidance for federal judges that he said had been “totally DISCREDITED.” The post blamed the Academy’s leadership — “Radical Left Dumocrats,” in Trump’s words — for manuals he said drove “massive ‘Climate Change’ Cases” and “huge losses” nationwide.
The chapter Trump is describing, however, was already gone. The Federal Judicial Center — the judiciary’s own research arm, not part of the executive branch — pulled the climate-science chapter from its Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence back in February, five months before Trump’s post, after 27 Republican state attorneys general demanded its removal. What Trump’s order actually targets is bigger: the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s (NASEM) standing as a federal contractor across dozens of agencies.
That distinction matters, because “suspension and debarment” is not a Truth Social phrase — it is a specific federal procurement tool that can bar a contractor from new federal money entirely. It is the exact tool 11 House Republicans, led by Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO), asked two Cabinet-level officials to consider using against NASEM more than two months before Trump’s post.
- 27 — Republican state attorneys general — led by West Virginia AG JB McCuskey (R) — who demanded the climate chapter's removal in a Jan. 29, 2026 letter
- $84 million — in 2024 Department of Transportation funding to NASEM that Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) flagged as up for suspension-or-debarment review in a May 4, 2026 letter
- Feb. 6, 2026 — the date the Federal Judicial Center confirmed to McCuskey's office that it had omitted the climate chapter
- 28 — scientists and legal scholars who co-signed an open letter defending the chapter's peer review as 'extensive and rigorous'
- ~250 of 1,100 — NASEM jobs the Academy has warned could be cut amid broader Trump-era federal contract losses, per E&E News/POLITICO
Trump’s post ran long by Truth Social standards — several paragraphs building to a specific directive rather than a one-line reaction. It reads less like a passing complaint than a formal instruction to federal contracting officials, closing with the kind of sign-off Trump uses when he wants a statement treated as official.
The National Academy of Sciences has historically published analytical Scientific Manuals expressly for our Federal Judiciary. 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. These Manuals have been totally DISCREDITED. Our Nation's Federal Judges deserve Facts and Science, not Political Fraud and False Science on Climate. With this TRUTH, I hereby order Federal Suspension and Debarment Officials to review this conduct. Our Taxpayers should not be funding Climate Fraud, and Judges should never have relied upon it. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Posted July 19, 2026, 8:17 p.m. — full text as archived, verbatim.
Suspension and debarment is a real federal acquisition tool, not a rhetorical flourish: agencies use it under federal contracting regulations to exclude organizations found to have engaged in fraud or serious misconduct from receiving new federal grants or contracts, sometimes for years. NASEM is a privately chartered, nonprofit advisory body — but it depends on federal contracts and grants from agencies including NSF, NIH, DOE, EPA, and DOT for a large share of its operating budget. A formal debarment finding against it would be a far bigger blow than losing one manual chapter.
Trump: The National Academy of Sciences has historically published analytical Scientific Manuals expressly for our Federal Judiciary. Of course, the Academy has been run by Radical Left Dumocrats who, it turns out, published fraudulent, biased, and misleading Manuals on Climate…
The manual in question is the Federal Judicial Center’s Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, produced jointly with NASEM to help federal judges evaluate expert testimony and documentary evidence in complex cases. Its fourth edition, released Dec. 31, 2025, added a new chapter, “Reference Guide on Climate Science,” written by Jessica Wentz of Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and Radley Horton of Columbia’s Climate School, with citations that included climatologist Michael Mann’s research.
The chapter used standard IPCC-style confidence language — that humans have “unequivocally warmed” the climate, that human influence on ocean warming is “extremely likely,” that ocean acidification is “virtually certain” — while also discussing areas of scientific uncertainty, according to its authors. West Virginia AG JB McCuskey (R) and the coalition he led argued that same language crossed a line: rather than educating judges, they said, it delivered “conclusive opinions on matters of serious dispute” that would “tip the scales” in climate litigation against energy producers.
“It would be unethical to suppress scientific information simply because it is inconvenient to some litigants.”
Jessica Wentz & Radley Horton · chapter co-authors, Columbia University
The campaign against the chapter predates Trump’s post by nearly six months. On Jan. 29, 2026, McCuskey and 26 fellow Republican state attorneys general sent the Federal Judicial Center a letter demanding the chapter’s immediate withdrawal, arguing it compromised judicial impartiality. Fox News Digital’s reporting on the chapter’s sourcing added pressure in the following days.
The Center — led by Judge Robin L. Rosenberg, an Obama appointee — confirmed to McCuskey’s office on Feb. 6, 2026 that it had omitted the chapter, then followed on Feb. 24 with a fuller letter confirming it would be excluded from all future printings and that NASEM would add a note documenting the decision. Twenty-eight scientists and legal scholars who authored other chapters of the same manual answered in March with an open letter calling the coordinated state campaign “a direct challenge to the independence of the federal judiciary” and warning that “every scientific discipline relevant to complex litigation becomes vulnerable to the same tactic” if the removal stands unchallenged.
The chapter was already gone by May, but the fight over NASEM’s money was just starting. On May 4, 2026, Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) and 10 colleagues — including Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Scott Perry (R-PA), and Troy Nehls (R-TX) — wrote to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and OMB Director Russ Vought, citing $84 million the Department of Transportation gave NASEM in 2024 alone and asking both officials to examine whether the Academy should be suspended or debarred from future federal grants and contracts entirely.
On it. Thank you @RepEricBurlison
The pressure isn’t limited to one letter. House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has separately been investigating NASEM’s review process on a different climate matter — its defense of the EPA’s 2009 endangerment finding — and NASEM has told staff it may need to cut roughly 250 of its 1,100 positions amid broader Trump-era cuts to federal research contracts, independent of anything tied to the judges’ manual specifically.
NASEM President Marcia McNutt has previously defended the withdrawn chapter’s peer review as sound, but neither she nor a NASEM spokesperson had responded to Trump’s specific July 19 order as of publication. That silence leaves the loudest institutional pushback coming from the manual’s own contributors, who argue the entire episode sets a precedent well beyond climate science: if a coordinated political campaign can force the removal of one peer-reviewed chapter, they wrote, “every scientific discipline relevant to complex litigation becomes vulnerable to the same tactic.”
It is worth being precise about what has and hasn’t happened. No agency has yet opened a formal suspension or debarment proceeding against NASEM; Trump’s post is a directive to federal officials to review the matter, not itself a legal finding. Actually barring NASEM from federal contracts would require specific findings of misconduct under federal acquisition rules — a higher bar than a public accusation. NASEM has not been found liable for fraud by any court, inspector general, or federal agency.
President Trump (R) — ordered the July 19 review, calling the withdrawn chapter “Political Fraud” and “False Science.”
Rep. Eric Burlison (R-MO) — led the May 4 letter asking OMB and DOT to consider suspending or debarring NASEM from federal contracts.
OMB Director Russ Vought — replied “On it” to Burlison’s request two and a half months before Trump’s post.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy — co-addressee of the debarment request; DOT gave NASEM $84 million in 2024.
WV AG JB McCuskey (R-WV) — led the 27-state coalition whose Jan. 29 letter got the chapter withdrawn in February.
NASEM President Marcia McNutt — has defended the chapter’s peer review; has not addressed Trump’s specific order.
Jessica Wentz & Radley Horton (Columbia University) — the chapter’s authors; call the campaign against it politically motivated and “unethical.”
No agency has moved to formally suspend or debar the National Academies, and NASEM has not been found liable for fraud by any court or inspector general — the “conduct” Trump wants reviewed is a manual chapter that was already withdrawn five months earlier. But the order converts a monthslong Republican campaign over roughly $84 million in federal contracts into a presidential directive, aimed at an institution already absorbing steep federal cuts. Whether Federal Suspension and Debarment Officials find grounds to act is now the fact worth watching.
