NOAA inboxes spammed with crude Trump jokes, Scientology subscription
An all-staff email distribution list at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was bombarded with crude emails Thursday night, prompting a review by its top IT official.
The emails included an “Important Weather Alert” about a “99% chance of shit showers” over the next four years, a subscription confirmation for Scientology Today, and crude and inflammatory messages critical of President Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Some of those emails were obtained by FedScoop and others were posted online to X and Reddit.
The incident has sparked a review by NOAA’s Office of the Chief Information Officer, according to an email shared by a spokesperson for the weather and climate agency. The message from Vice Admiral Nancy Hann, NOAA’s deputy undersecretary for operations, was sent Thursday night and stated that the agency was “subject to a cyber attack using a NOAA all hands email account” and that the OCIO was investigating to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Though Hann said the attack was “quickly shut down” by the OCIO, she acknowledged that “a number of emails were received by the workforce, some of which were extremely offensive and others appeared to be phishing attempts.”
“I am sorry that you were subject to these inappropriate messages and want you to know that we take these matters very seriously,” Hann told staff. Hann is performing the duties of undersecretary of Commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator.
FedScoop was able to contact a sender of one of those emails who said they got the address for the distribution list from a NOAA email that was posted to X by the independent journalist Ken Klippenstein. The source said they thought the message would be going to an HR official. That source was granted anonymity to speak more freely.
The incident comes as internal federal emails have been a subject of much attention. Since the beginning of the Trump administration, the Office of Personnel Management implemented a new governmentwide email capability, and federal employees have been getting messages from the agency about “deferred resignation” from their jobs.
Many of those messages have been posted online by reporters and by anonymous federal employees in spaces like r/fednews on Reddit, which has become a popular source of information and commiseration amid the Trump administration’s push to reshape the workforce within the U.S. government.
