DOJ says Trump-era probe of Calif. auto emissions deal wasn’t political

By Alex Nieves | 07/23/2024 01:01 PM EDT

Inspector General Michael Horowitz said that although the investigation “gave us pause,” his team didn’t find evidence of political influence.

Traffic heads toward downtown Los Angeles along the 101 freeway.

Former President Donald Trump's Department of Justice opened an antitrust investigation into four automakers in 2019. Mark J. Terrill/AP

A Trump-era antitrust investigation of automakers’ voluntary emissions agreement with California wasn’t politically motivated, the Department of Justice wrote in a report released Monday.

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded that although the timing of the Justice Department’s 2019 probe into the agreement raised eyebrows, his team did not find evidence of “improper political influence” that warranted further review.

The investigation from DOJ’s antitrust division publicly launched in September 2019, the day after former President Donald Trump tweeted a series of posts criticizing the deal between California and automakers to abide by California’s emissions rules rather than the federal government’s.

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Horowitz’s review — which included interviews and thousands of documents and communication records from DOJ staff at the time — found that the division had started looking into the agreement weeks before Trump’s tweets.

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